by Rob Cornell
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
He rested a hand on one of mine. His palm felt warm, like sunburned skin. “I don’t want to split hairs about this. I’m just looking out for my daughter.”
I yanked my hand out from under his. “You think she can’t take care of herself?”
“That’s not what this is about. You have good taste in music, you’re obviously not an idiot. Look at it from my side.”
I looked out the window, pretended to think it over. “Fine. I see your point. It looked weird.”
“That’s not my point at all.”
I didn’t say anything, and Lincoln laid it out for me.
“My point,” he said and stood, “is that you need to stay away from my daughter. I don’t care about old friends or whatever. It’s clear what you want from her.”
My throat closed. “Oh, yeah?”
He picked up my coffee, took a sip, then set the cup in front of me and pointed at it. “Doesn’t feel so good, does it? Having another man sip what’s yours?”
My jaw tensed. “I’m not sure I know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Just stay away from her. Whatever little romance you once had, you’re not going to rekindle it.”
Before I could even deny his accusation, he stormed off, the door’s bell dinging in his wake.
I lifted my coffee to my lips, caught myself, and dropped it in the trash on my way out.
Chapter 3
My tires squealed as I turned into the High Note’s parking lot. I caught a glimpse of Sheila as I raced my way to a parking spot. She stood to one side of the bar’s entrance, arms folded, a scowl on her face.
I jerked into the first spot available, jammed the car into park, and had one foot out the door before even cutting the engine.
“Judging from the speed of your arrival,” Sheila said when I met her at the door, “I don’t have to tell you you’re late.”
I held up my hands. “Don’t shoot.”
“Where were you?” she asked and stepped in my way when I tried to walk past her into the bar.
“Running errands.” I cringed at my own lame excuse. “Is everyone here?”
“Most.” She scowled at her watch. “Some left. They couldn’t get in.”
Uh-oh. “Paul has keys.”
“No one has seen him, nor heard from him. Lucky for you, I happened to stop by. Has it ever occurred to you to give your employees your cell phone number?”
My cheeks grew warm. I scratched the back of my neck, giving me an excuse to look at my feet. “They’ve got it.”
Sheila’s mouth turned to a straight line. “You never charged your phone.”
I gave her my showman’s smile, just like Mom and Dad had taught me—guaranteed to win over any audience.
One eyebrow shot up almost a full inch. “You are hopeless.”
“Let me try calling Paul. I’ll straighten this out.”
“It’s been tried.”
I glanced toward the parking lot, feeling the impending Friday rush like a building storm. Any minute they’d start pulling in, demanding inebriation and a chance to make fools of themselves on stage. Savages.
“If Paul isn’t here, who’s going to tend bar?”
Sheila’s eyes narrowed. “Since you failed to take the time to hire a back-up—”
“He wanted to work every shift. I didn’t think I needed a back-up.”
“Indeed.”
I waited for more, but “indeed” was apparently her final answer.
“What are we going to do?”
A silver Mercedes rolled into the lot and parked next to my car. The driver-side door opened, releasing a thick could of smoke. A leg clad in sparkling gold stepped into view, and then Hal emerged through the smoke cloud wearing a gold jumpsuit, the zipper open practically down to his navel.
Sheila grabbed me by the arm and pulled me toward the bar. “There’s only one option.”
I tugged my arm free. “I don’t know a thing about tending bar. I don’t know a whiskey sour from an amaretto sour. Except, well, one has whiskey and the other has amaretto.”
“I was referring to myself.”
“You?”
“Me.”
Hal reached us. “Howdy, Rid. Ready for some rocking and rolling?”
I was too busy gaping at Sheila to answer. Besides… Rocking and rolling?
Sheila ignored him as well. “You never did answer my question. Where were you that you let slip your obligation here?”
“I didn’t let anything slip,” I said. “I got caught up.”
Hal gave a salute, blushing. “See you inside then.” He scooted between Sheila and me, his gold chains jangling around his neck.
“Doing what?” Sheila asked.
“Doing whatever. Does it matter?”
Her scowl faltered. Her gaze fell from my face to the asphalt between us. “I suppose it doesn’t matter to you one whit what your parents wanted.”
“Are you seriously going to guilt trip me here?”
“Yes.” She stared at me, her body so rigid her dangling earrings didn’t even quiver, as if icicles instead of diamonds. “Shouldn’t you feel guilt?”
“I feel guilty enough without your help.”
“Riding in here late is guilt? Ignoring your responsibilities is guilt?”
“I deal with things in my own way. If that’s not good enough for you …” I threw up my hands, started to walk past her.
She rested a hand on my chest. “Ridley.”
I stopped, but didn’t look at her.
“I heard Mr. Rice’s daughter came to see you last night.”
My body tensed. “Gee, Sheila, I didn’t know you had me on surveillance.”
“Listen to me.” She grabbed me by the upper arms and guided me to face her. “I remember your little relationship with her—”
“If this is a lecture on how I’d be better off staying away from her, I’ve already heard it today.”
“Is that where you were? With her?”
“She’s asked for my help.”
“I’m not sure I want to know what kind of help.”
I stepped away from Sheila, showing her my palms. “I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry you’re inconvenienced. If you don’t want to tend bar tonight, that’s fine with me.”
“That’s the difference between you and I. I’m offering to help because I honor what your parents have done here. I’m not trying to make up for fifteen years of lost opportunities.”
I stammered, groping for a response.
“I’m glad to help, Ridley.” She gestured toward the door. “Shall we go inside before Hal decides to sing sober?”
She went ahead, leaving me there with my mouth hanging open.
What did she know?
A buzzing above my head made me look up. The neon sign over the entrance came to life, blazing two words in bright blue cursive: High Note.
I walked under the sign, into fifteen years of lost opportunities.
The next morning, I popped some Advil to ease the lingering pain from listening to Hal’s Not-So-Greatest Hits all night. I tried to comfort myself with my day’s agenda. A little snooping and surveillance would do my soul some good.
The first thing I saw off my exit from the I-75 in Detroit, while I sat at a red light, was one junkie trying to bite the fingers off of another. At least, I hoped they were junkies.
Had I made a wrong turn? I double checked the directions I had pulled from the internet. This was the place.
The light changed, and I pulled through slowly, scanning my surroundings, keeping alert. I hadn’t spent much time in Detroit except when I was a kid and my parents would drag me to the Masonic Temple for Michigan Opera Theatre performances—many of which my father played in. Technically I was in Detroit, but we had gone straight from the parking lot, up the steps, and into the theatre, then straight back to the car after the show.
I saw more burnt out, crumbling buildings looming over me than
livable ones. Driving through their shadows, I felt constantly watched, though hardly a soul walked the streets. Almost every corner had a pawn shop with caged window fronts and signs boasting promises of cash for gold. When I finally reached the gas station, I noticed a building across the street that looked like a brick shoebox, the brick itself dirty and gray. A plain white sign above the front door claimed “METRO DETROIT FREE CLINIC” in fading letters.
Free clinic? You couldn’t have paid me to get a check up there.
By the time I parked in the gas station’s lot, the long drive had turned my legs to rubber. Standing outside the door, a lone man with yellowing eyes tracked me like a surveillance camera as I passed.
A dull tone sounded when I entered.
The man behind the counter had brown skin with pinkish spots on his balding head. His eye sockets looked sunken, the eyes themselves staring at a mini black and white television next to the cash register. He didn’t bother looking up, but I noticed one of his hands drop behind the counter.
I took some comfort in the feel of my own Sig Sauer SP 2022 hugged against my body in its shoulder holster. I never renewed my P.I. license after moving back to Michigan, but I had made sure the permits on both my guns were up to date.
“You own the place?” I asked.
The man licked his peeling lips and yawned. “I don’t have combo to safe.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
His sunken eyes finally turned away from the television and focused on me. A smirk twitched on his face. “Why police come only when not called?”
“I’m not a cop.”
He nodded, but the smile told me he didn’t believe me. “Okay, not-cop. What can I do for you? You want a stick of gum? We don’t got donuts.”
His hand, I noticed, still hadn’t come out from behind the counter. Maybe he did believe I wasn’t a cop.
“Do you own the gas station?”
He shrugged and rested his chin in one hand with his elbow planted on the counter. “What is own? Owning is relative, don’t you think? People around here think they own, and try to take whatever they want.”
“Bet that shotgun behind the counter makes them think twice.”
The man laughed. “No my friend.” He pulled out a monster of a hand cannon—a Smith & Wesson .50- caliber Magnum from the looks of it. Not the kind of gun you see every day. “There is no shotgun here.”
Casually, he let the over eight inches of barrel point in my direction.
“My mistake.”
“What brings white man who is not cop into peaceful part of this neighborhood?”
I gestured toward the counter. “Can I hand you something without you installing a window into my chest?”
“I am not a violent man,” he said, as if that answered my question.
I kept my movements slow, made sure he caught a glimpse of my own gun under my jacket when I pulled out a picture of Doug Autumn had given me. I wouldn’t lie and tell him I was a cop, but if he refused to believe I wasn’t, I figured that might make him a little more hesitant to shoot me.
I strolled up to the counter as if there wasn’t four and a half pounds of revolver between us, and dropped the picture in front of him.
His deep eyes rolled down to look. “Pretty blonde. Are you selling him or something?”
“Have you seen him?”
“I see lots of people.”
“Lots of blonde white guys driving silver Ford Freestyles come to your gas station?”
He grinned, showing sharp, yellow teeth. “All the time.”
I waited.
“What else do you keep in pockets?” he asked. “All photos?”
I reached into my back pocket for my wallet. I opened the wallet and thumbed through the cash until I found a fifty. I slid the fifty out and handed it across the counter. As he went to take it, I let go, and the bill fluttered down behind the counter.
“Oops.”
He didn’t bend to pick it up, but his guard dropped, giving me enough time to grab his gun hand and slam it down on the counter.
He yelped.
I felt his grip on the weapon loosen, so I slid my own grip off his hand and over the gun. A quick jerk while striking his chest with the open palm of my free hand popped the Magnum out of his grasp, and sent him staggering backward into a cigarette display on a low shelf. Packs of Marlboros tumbled off the shelf like loose teeth.
Rubbing at his chest where I hit him, he spat at me.
I hefted the gun in my own hand, marveling at its weight. “Awfully big gun for such a little man.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re the one pointed the gun at me. I just came in to ask some questions. Who likes holding friendly conversations at gunpoint?”
He muttered something in another language.
“You can keep the fifty,” I said. “Just tell me if you’ve seen this guy or not.”
He scowled, but the glance toward the floor where the fifty had fallen told me he’d get over it. “Never seen him.”
I rolled my eyes. “You asshole. All this bullshit and you’ve never seen him?”
He held out his hands.
“I know for a fact he filled up here. You couldn’t have missed him.”
“You think I don’t have white customers ever? I have one white man come here regular since I open place. I’m no racist, but how do I keep track? You all look same.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Besides, I not always work. My son, he sometimes here. And my wife.”
“You let your wife work here alone?”
He nodded toward the Magnum in my hands. “She goes to shooting range every Sunday.”
I dug from my jacket pocket a copy I’d made of the statement the gas station charge was on and checked the date. “What about on April sixteenth? Were you working?”
“What day?”
I spotted a wall calendar emblazoned with a popular cigarette brand’s logo hanging behind him. I pointed to it. “Check your calendar.”
He turned slowly and tried to keep me in sight while he consulted the calendar. After flipping back to April he drew a hand down over the page and stopped on the date in question. “Wednesday,” he said.
“And?”
He let the pages flap back to the current month and turned to me, but his gaze dipped to the counter top.
“Well?”
“Me. I worked that day.”
“And you didn’t see a shiny blonde guy with big teeth come in to pay for gas?”
“Pay at pump,” he said. “Everyone do that now. Credit card, right?”
“So what?”
“He never come in, I don’t see him. How do I know?”
I turned, looking out the window toward the pumps. Most of them were in sight, but hanging advertisements on the windows and high racks of candy and chips created blind spots. Even so, unless Doug did anything more than pull up and fill his tank, what reason would someone behind the counter have to notice?
“Damn.”
But you can’t let loose ends dangle. And I had to admit, it felt good doing the detective thing again. It beat the hell out of listening to Hal choke on notes.
I snapped open the Magnum’s cylinder and tipped out the five .50-caliber missiles into my palm. I pocketed the bullets and set the gun back on the counter.
“Have a nice day.”
I snatched the picture off the counter and left, the man behind the counter sputtering at my back in another language. If I’d listened closely, I might have learned a few foreign curse words.
I finally charged my cell phone with the car charger, and dialed Autumn on hers on my way back from Detroit. Autumn answered in a whisper.
“He there?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m on my way. I’ll probably be parked outside your house within the hour. Don’t look for me.”
I needed to stop home first and prepare. I brewed some coffee and filled a thermos, made a couple of sandwiches,
grabbed my digital camera and fresh batteries, and chose a small stack of CDs from my collection. I put all this in a duffel bag, then headed for the attached three-car garage.
I hadn’t been in the garage since I’d first arrived, Sheila insisting I see everything my parents had left me. The inheritance included two cars: a Sterling Gray BMW 760Li and—I kid you not—a Rolls Royce. The last space in the garage remained empty. That was where my parents had parked the car they were killed in, an off white Escalade. The cops still had the Escalade. They were done with the car, but I never bothered to pick it up.
As much as I loved my Civic, I didn’t think it wise to use it for surveillance after Lincoln Rice’s tail job. He wasn’t the only one who had seen me driving around in the Civic either. I needed to swap my ride.
Obviously, the Rolls was no good. Autumn’s neighborhood might have been upper-middle-class suburbia, but it was still suburbia, and a Rolls would stick out like a stripper in a convent.
I felt a little awkward driving the BMW at first, used to my own car. But it didn’t take long to appreciate a decent ride. Once I got comfortable, I found it hard to keep under ten miles above the speed limit. I kept playing with the climate control and readjusting the seat. Then I slipped one of my CDs into the player and discovered the sweet glory of the BMW’s sound system.
I pulled to the curb across the street and three houses down from Autumn’s, under a maple tree with a bird’s nest tucked into the V of two lower branches. I cracked the window, shut off the engine, and sank into my seat with a content sigh.
I should have taken this baby out a long time ago.
With such a cozy set up in the BMW, the next two hours seemed to pass like two minutes. I was almost sorry when the garage door rolled up, and Doug’s silver Freestyle backed out of the driveway.
Autumn stood in the garage, watching him leave, her arms folded across her chest, her expression unreadable. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like her eyes scanned the street as if she might be looking for me. Doug honked twice and waved as he pulled out. Autumn didn’t wave back.
I had the engine running, hands on the steering wheel, waiting to see which way he’d go. The Freestyle’s back end swung my way as he cleared the driveway. I let him get to the end of the block before heading after him, a jolt of adrenaline watering my blood. Just like old times.