Putting Lipstick on a Pig

by Michael Bowen

  “Any problem with taking the Lake route to the south side? It’s a little longer, but it’ll be faster. The work they’re doing on the Marquette Interchange makes the north-south freeway a long, skinny parking lot this time of day.”

  “Go ahead,” Melissa said distractedly.

  During the ride she left voice-mails for Washington and Rep. By the time she’d completed those chores she could see the Italian Community Center on her right, which meant they were on the south side. A straight mile or so later and a few twists and turns after the cab turned away from Lake Michigan, she noticed a long, odd name on a street sign: Kinnikinnick. She remembered the name from Rep’s account of driving Key back home after the Cold Coast settlement.

  Like a ham actor in a provincial theater, Fake-name had been edging his way back to center stage in her mind throughout the cab ride. She’d thought the voice-mail was all she could do to warn Key, but maybe now she could go one better than that. Fumbling a bit with nervousness, she managed to find Key’s address on her Palm Pilot.

  “Tell you what,” she said to the cabbie. “On your way to Alverno, stop at this address.” She recited it.

  “That’s not exactly on the way, but it’s your nickel.”

  Ten minutes later the cab stopped in the middle of a street chock-a-block with curb-parked cars on both sides. Promising to take only a minute, Melissa strode down the alley-way toward Key’s flat, climbed the stairs to the second-story apartment and rang the bell. Nothing happened. She could hear the bell sounding inside, but heard no movement and saw no lights. She tried again, accompanying the bell-push this time with an authoritative rap on the door. Same result.

  Figuring that as long as she was here she might as well leave a note, Melissa began to write one. She had just begun the process when the door cracked just wide enough for her to see half of Key’s face.

  “Oh, hi,” Melissa said. “There’s something I wanted—”

  “This isn’t really a good time,” Key said. “I’ve got, uh, like this monster transcript that has to be done by tomorrow. As long as you’re here, though, could I bum a couple of cigarettes? I’m all out, and I don’t want to take time away from the transcript to go out for some.”

  Huh? Melissa thought. Missing only a beat or two from surprise, she managed to ad lib a response.

  “Sorry, I don’t have any myself right now. Would you like me to run out and get some for you?”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Key said. “My bro will be over before too much longer, and he’ll have a pack for me. Thanks anyway.”

  The door closed decisively.

  On her way back to the cab, Melissa tried Washington’s number again. Not there. She sensed impatience radiating from the cabbie, and she didn’t blame him. She pulled two twenties from her purse and tendered them.

  “Listen,” she said, “for forty dollars can you go over to Alverno, pick up an envelope being held for me at the library desk, and bring it back here?”

  “Are you kidding?” the cabbie asked. “For forty bucks I can bring it to you gift-wrapped with an Italian sausage on the side.”

  He sped off, leaving Melissa at the curb, wondering what she should do. The only logical explanation for Key’s performance just now was unwanted company and quick thinking. Maybe Melissa could call nine-one-one and spin that into an emergency. Maybe—

  Or maybe, you precious goose, you could call Nguyen AS SUE ALL BUT EXPRESSLY TOLD YOU TO. Sheesh.

  Four-one-one had Don Nguyen’s home number, and Melissa dialed it. She got an answering machine and left a message.

  Chapter 21

  Melissa gave Nguyen three hundred impatient seconds to call her back and tell her he was on his way. Then, figuring that she was out of options, she squared her shoulders and, affecting the determinedly resolute tread of a bailiff bringing bad news to Grantley Manor, headed back for Key’s flat. As much for form’s sake as anything else she banged again on the door.

  “Sue, it’s me,” she called, sacrificing grammar to efficiency. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got something for you that your brother sent over. C’mon, open up.”

  Then she knocked again. No response. She rattled the door and rapped on its glass portion.

  “Hey, Sue?” Melissa called then. “I really do have to get this to you. It’s not something I can just leave on the doorstep—you know what I mean? I need to get it inside your flat, and I need to get it there in the next ten minutes.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I mean it, Sue. I’ll set the burglar alarm off if I have to.”

  That did the trick. Within three seconds she saw light spill into the hallway and heard footsteps scurrying toward the door. She could make out two shadowy figures. Bolts snapped and the door flew open. In the muted light Melissa saw Fake-name and Key.

  “I didn’t mean for—” the young woman began.

  “Well, well, well,” Fake-name interrupted. “Professor Pennyworth. Come on in—and bring your pot or ecstasy or meth or whatever it is with you.”

  Melissa stayed where she was. Fake-name had interpreted her necessarily vague comments about what she’d brought for Key as amateurish allusions to a drug delivery. He must have thought that such guilty knowledge would give him leverage to pry information out of both her and Key, and that’s why he’d finally had Key open up.

  “Where I grew up,” Melissa said, “you don’t barge into other people’s homes without their permission. Sue, may I come in?”

  “I really don’t—I mean, ah—that is, okay, I guess so, sure.”

  Melissa stepped into the hall and followed Key to the flat’s kitchen, all under Fake-name’s close supervision. As at her office, he stopped short of anything you could call an overt physical threat. He didn’t lay his hands on them or show a weapon or raise his fist. He just made it clear what he wanted them to do, and let the danger implicit in his size and attitude take care of the rest.

  “You know this guy?” Key asked Melissa in a tone combining accusation with astonishment as she parked her hips irritably against the small counter near the refrigerator.

  “Not really,” Melissa said. “I never saw him before he accosted me in my office a couple of hours ago and told me his name was Charlie Dressing.”

  “Charlie Dressing?” Key said disgustedly to the man. “You told me your name was Bobby Bragan.”

  “You’d better get this case wrapped up fast,” Melissa said to him, “before you run out of Milwaukee Braves ex-managers to steal names from.”

  “Let’s quit wasting time,” the guy said. “I really do have friends on the Milwaukee police force, and every cop likes an easy collar. I could arrange a drug bust here by snapping my fingers. I know pot isn’t any big deal anymore, but even if that’s all you’re delivering it’s not going to do your academic career any good to have your mug shot in the Metro section of the Journal-Sentinel under a headline saying something about ‘Drug-Dealing Professor.’ I’ve already told you the information I need. Give it to me and I’ll get out of your hair so you two can complete your business and blow a little weed.”

  “You do have an active imagination,” Melissa said. She felt hollow-bellied and jelly-legged, and the only way she knew to deal with that was to act a lot braver than she felt. “You’re blowing smoke up your own orifice.”

  “You wanna show me what’s in your purse?” the guy asked casually, offering her an I’ve-been-bluffed-by-pros smile.

  Melissa ignored him and turned to Key.

  “Has he threatened you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Key hissed.

  “No, I have not,” the guy interjected. “‘Threat’ is a defined term under case law interpreting subsection one of section nine-forty-three-point-thirty of the Wisconsin Statutes, and nothing I have said or done qualifies.”

  Then the Wisconsin Statutes could stand another look, Melissa thought, because right now I’m scared stiff.

  “He told me he had information ab
out Don,” Key told Melissa, her voice breaking for the first time. “He said Don could be in a lot of trouble. He said he could help, but he needed information from me. I couldn’t tell him anything and I told him that and asked him to leave, but he wouldn’t go.”

  “Did he force you to let him stay here?”

  “I don’t know if I can say that,” Key said, after a moment’s confused pause. “When I asked him to leave, he just wouldn’t go. Instead he’d smile and talk about how Don has a record already and bad things could happen to him and didn’t I want to help him because he could do something to help but only if he had my cooperation.”

  “How about when I knocked the first time? Did he say he’d do something to you if you just asked me to get some help?”

  “Not really,” Key said. “He said something like he’d strongly suggest I get rid of you fast because we, like, really had to have this talk. I was afraid he would do something, but he never actually said he would.”

  “You see?” Fake-name asked, smiling smugly. “Now, let’s talk about protecting both Sue’s brother and your career at the same time, shall we?”

  Melissa’s cell phone rang. Skipping the apologies customary in her understanding of cell-phone protocol, she answered.

  “Hi, honey,” Rep said. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, hi, Detective Washington. Thanks for calling back.”

  “Uh, right,” Rep said.

  “This is actually well timed. There’s a gentlemen here who’s interested in arranging a drug bust by the Milwaukee Police Department. Let me put him on so that he can tell you where to have the officers come.”

  She held the phone out to Fake-name. It would be imprecise to say that assurance drained from his face, because “drained” implies a process that takes some time, whereas the change here was instantaneous. He backed away toward the kitchen door and pushed the palms of his hands toward Melissa, as if the phone were a rodent particularly redolent of vermin.

  “Don’t you want to talk to Detective Washington?” Melissa coaxed.

  A key sounded in the outside lock. The guy’s eyes widened, as if Washington might somehow have magically appeared at the flat in response to Melissa’s comment a few seconds before.

  “That would either be my seldom seen flat-mate or Don,” Key said.

  “All right, I’m going now,” Fake-name said—superfluously, for he was already into the hallway. “But think about what I said.”

  “And don’t come back,” Key shouted.

  “Who’s this guy, Sis?” a voice that Melissa took to be Nguyen’s called loudly from the hallway. “Is he giving you any trouble?”

  “Not anymore,” Key yelled. “Just let him go.”

  And that’s probably just what would have happened had the interloper not chosen this moment for an ill-advised effort to recover his manhood.

  “Watch it, slope,” they heard him sneer from the hallway. “You’re a little guy. Little guys don’t do too well in jail.”

  Melissa and Key didn’t hear the contact between Nguyen’s right fist and Fake-name’s solar plexus that apparently followed this comment. They did hear an audible expulsion of breath and the sound of someone about to be sick, which drew them to the hallway. They found Fake-name on his knees, hugging himself around the midsection. He was muttering something about a felony in violation of section nine-forty-point-twenty of the Wisconsin Statutes.

  “Ordinary battery is only a misdemeanor,” Nguyen said. “Felony requires substantial bodily harm. Wanna try for that one?”

  “Bro,” Key said fiercely, “get in here before I bust you one. I don’t want this creep vomiting all over my hallway.”

  Fake-name took advantage of the brief diversion caused by Key’s admonition to half-crawl and half-walk out the door. At that point, Melissa remembered Rep and raised the cell phone back to her ear.

  “How much of that did I hear?” Rep asked.

  “Not a word. Call me back at home in about two hours.”

  “Check.”

  Lowering the phone, Melissa looked at Key and Nguyen.

  “I’ll leave right now if you’d like me to,” she said, figuring that Key had probably had her fill of verbal strong-arming for one night. “But I really would like to talk to you if you don’t mind.”

  “You kidding?” Key trilled. “You just saved my cute little first-generation American butt. Come back into the kitchen so I can whip up some traditional Vietnamese-American cuisine.”

  This turned out to be Oolong tea and frozen personal pan pizzas nuked in the microwave. The food proved to be better than the conversation that went with it.

  After Melissa and Key rehashed their encounters, Nguyen swore that he wasn’t in any more trouble than the average mechanic trying to procure beer, food, rent, tunes, basic cable, a decent ride, and an occasional slap-and-tickle on book-rate small engine work in Milwaukee. Watching his face as he relayed this to Key, Melissa believed him. She’d known plenty of boisterous micks in Kansas City who could feed cops blarney until they sweated corned beef and cabbage but couldn’t lie to a nun to save their lives. Melissa suspected that Nguyen was the same way with Key.

  Then, taking a calculated risk, Melissa gave them the highlights of what she and Rep had learned, with the bracing implication that the seemingly petty theft from Key’s apartment might be related to two murders. She had hoped by doing this to win their trust. She could tell from the younger woman’s eyes, though, that instead of extending trust Key had ducked under a shell too hard for Melissa to penetrate.

  “You sound like you know a lot more about this than I do,” she said guardedly when Melissa had finished. “I don’t see what I could tell you that would be any help.”

  “Well,” Melissa said carefully, “you could tell me what the deal was between your mom and Vance Hayes.”

  “I just don’t have any idea,” Key said with a high school drama class smile-and-shrug. “That letter she gave me came like a bolt from the blue.”

  I hope she never plays poker with that face. She’ll go broke fast.

  “Perhaps, then,” Melissa said, “you could call your mom and ask her if she’d be willing to talk to me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Key said, lowering her eyes and sagging miserably in her chair. “I’ve gotten too many people involved in my own troubles already. I can’t drag Mother into this as well.”

  Melissa rejected any idea of debating the point. Increased mental and emotional pressure wouldn’t do Key any good right now.

  “I understand,” Melissa said, touching Key’s hand in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. “After I leave, though, please call your mother and tell her that she might be the next person the jerk who stopped here tonight has on his list.”

  As she walked outside to wait for the cabbie to return from Alverno, she hoped he’d been kidding about the Italian sausage.

  Chapter 22

  “So this poor man’s Travis McGee thinks I’m going to pin it all on Dreyfus and call it a day, huh?” Detective Washington asked as he approached Melissa after she had darted across Hartford Avenue the next day.

  “And good afternoon to you, Lieutenant,” Melissa said, slowing her brisk pace slightly as Washington began walking beside her. “I take it you’ve heard my voice-mail about yesterday’s little adventure.”

  “That’s the main reason I’m here. That plus the photograph and other material your husband had messengered over to me.”

  “What about Pelham Dreyfus?”

  “Still don’t have a line on him. Around the time he supposedly got to O’Hare he could have caught flights for the Far East or Latin America, but we haven’t even confirmed that he was the one who went through security then.”

  Melissa stopped and turned, open-mouthed, to face Washington.

  “But Fake-name—the guy calling himself Dressing and then Bragan—said Dreyfus was dead.”

  “He was making that up.”

 
; For some reason, amid the deceit that had run through her encounter with Fake-name, the sheer effrontery of that particular lie flustered Melissa for a moment. The phony name, the tacit threats, the noir movie swagger—those aggravated her, but they didn’t make her feel like an idiot. She had just assumed that Dreyfus’ death actually had triggered the guy’s visit. It hadn’t even occurred to her that he might have invented that as well.

  “He just told me a bare-faced lie about that,” Melissa sputtered, furious at her own gullibility.

  “Yeah. He probably missed church last Sunday too.”

  “Well, I hope you find him quickly.”

  “So do I,” Washington said, as he fell back into step beside her. “I’d like to hear what he has to say when he’s been provided with the proper motivation. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot to go on. The dot com on that card he gave you is offshore, and we can’t get any details about who’s behind it.”

  “I wouldn’t think Milwaukee would have that many characters who are interesting in quite the way this guy is.”

  “I’m not sure he’s local. At least not recently. If any low-rent, unlicensed P.I. had been flaming around Milwaukee for long the way this guy was yesterday, he would’ve come to my attention. And I would’ve come to his.”

  “He was citing chapter and verse from Wisconsin statutes and spouting inside information like a precinct captain.”

  “Ex-jailbirds can quote statutes like a preacher quotes the Bible. I think that whole routine was a scam, including the local insider stuff.”

  “That makes a lot of sense, now that you’ve spelled it out for me,” Melissa said.

  “Dreyfus was just about dumb enough to try to shoot someone with a handgun from two hundred feet away,” Washington said, “which would be a good trick for Wyatt Earp, but I don’t see him having the guts to kill Levitan.”

  “Too much of a bottom-feeder?”

  “He makes catfish look like gourmets. He was a penny-ante grifter.”

  “In other words,” Melissa said, “somebody tougher and smarter and more dangerous than Dreyfus has been deeply involved in this from the start. Someone like Fake-name—or perhaps like Roger Leopold.”