Dead Ringer

by Michael A. Black

  Something warm ran down over the back of my left hand and I saw it was blood. I checked my forearm and, to my chagrin, saw that his knife had indeed caused a deep gash on my forearm. But that wasn’t what I was disappointed about. I’d worn my special, Imperial Palace jacket that Chappie had given me on our last trip to Vegas. The time I’d won the championship. The delicate black cloth had a jagged rip across the sleeve, and the whole lower portion was sodden with blood. But at least it was just my own blood.

  I moved back into the alley, picked up my gym bag, and headed back to Chappie’s to call 9-1-1.

  Alex St. James

  That evening, as I dialed Larry Farnsworth’s home phone number, I remembered Jordan’s admonishment to be less forthcoming with the truth. Larry hadn’t returned any of my prior calls. I’d left four polite, hopeful messages—twice with his assistant, twice on his voice mail. The most recent had been two days ago. Although I wasn’t exactly a client, I thought I deserved the courtesy of a return call.

  Larry answered mid–fifth ring. “Hello?” His voice was groggier than an eight o’ clock phone call warranted. It almost sounded like he’d been drinking.

  “This is Alex, Uncle Larry,” I said unnecessarily. I was pretty sure just about everyone had Caller ID these days. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he said too quickly. “Why, what’s the matter?”

  I could tell I’d woken him up. Surprised him. Set him off kilter. Damn. His demeanor was all wrong for a friendly call asking a favor.

  This had been a mistake. “Nothing, I just wanted to call and say hello. I’ll try again some other time when it’s more convenient.”

  “It’s convenient now,” he said brusquely. “You’re calling because I haven’t gotten back to you about your adoption, aren’t you? I’ve got other things on my plate, you know. I have paying clients who depend on me to look after their interests.”

  Shoot. I’d not only bothered him, I’d put him in a bad mood.

  I scrambled to come up with another reason to have called, one that wouldn’t hurt my chances of getting adoption information later. “I was worried that you were okay,” I said. “Because I knew you’d return my calls if you could.”

  Jordan would be so proud of me.

  “Hmph,” he said, but his tone softened. “Makes sense. Never thought of it that way. Been such a long time since . . .”

  He didn’t finish the thought.

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” I said, prepared to end the call there and then. The good will this little conversation provided might pay dividends later if I didn’t press my luck now.

  “Nice of you to call.”

  “Well, you take care, Uncle Larry.”

  “Say,” he said, “have you talked to Nicky lately? Was he able to help you out with that story you were working on?”

  Evidently, the man wasn’t as groggy as he sounded. And, just as evidently, Nicky hadn’t told Daddy about his just-in-time damsel-in-distress rescue.

  “He’s been helping me a lot,” I said with manufactured warmth. If my embellishing made Larry a little bit happier with his son, I was glad to do it. “In fact, you should ask him about the excitement on Grisham Avenue the other day.”

  He coughed. “Not too exciting, I hope,” he said with a phlegmy laugh. “What happened?”

  “I’ll let Nicky tell you all about it,” I said. “I’ll tell him you want to hear the whole story.”

  “You’ll be talking with him soon?”

  “I plan to call him again tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” he said and even over the connection I could hear the smile in his voice. “I didn’t know the two of you kept in touch so regularly.”

  I pressed my lips shut to keep from answering the begged question—from correcting what I knew Larry assumed. I hated being disingenuous, even by omission, but I was tired of being ignored.

  Keeping my tone light, I answered without answering, “And you and I should probably keep in touch regularly, too. I know you’re busy, but . . .”

  “I haven’t forgotten, Alex. I just haven’t had time to devote to investigation.” For the first time since we started talking, Larry sounded sincere. “There are a couple of big cases at work that I’ve been called in on. I haven’t had a moment’s rest all week. But soon, I promise you, I’ll take a look at your file and let you know where we stand. Fair enough?”

  “More than fair,” I said. If he had as heavy a caseload as he claimed, I could empathize. Momentum could be destroyed when starting a new project. After all, I’d only recently broached the subject to him. “I’ll call you in a week or so, just to check in.”

  “Better yet, why don’t you and Nicky set a date and the three of us will all go out. I should have my portion of this case taken care of by next Thursday. Let’s all go out for an early dinner on the weekend.” He sniffed and made a noise like he was thinking aloud. “Early enough to give you and Nicky time to do something else afterward. My treat.”

  The thought of me and Nicky “doing something else” repulsed me with such vehemence that I shuddered. “Sounds wonderful,” I said. “In fact, Nicky’s been helping me with another matter.”

  “Oh?” he said with a little too much enthusiasm.

  “Nicky is trying to help me locate one of the homeless folks who he helped. This guy made a new life for himself. Maybe you know him. Howard Rybak?”

  Larry gave a grunt. “Doesn’t sound familiar. But then again Nicky’s always helping someone. This time, I’m glad he’s helping you.”

  Ron Shade

  On my run the next morning I reflected on the whole incident. I was going much slower than usual, not so much because of my injury, but because the shoulder rig I was wearing with my Beretta 95F was rubbing my side with acute irritation. I don’t normally run with a gun, but after last night’s encounter, paranoia had gotten the better of me.

  Chappie had insisted on accompanying me to the ER, where a very nice, young, female doctor cleaned up my wound, gave me a tetanus shot, and a latticework of stitches. Chappie kept shaking his head.

  “Can’t believe this happened. We never have no problems of that kind by the gym. You know who this cat was?”

  I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure I winged him, so he might be showing up at a hospital for a gunshot wound.”

  “I see the motherfucker, I’ll kill his ass,” Chappie said. “If you didn’t beat me to it.”

  Two uniformed coppers from twenty-two came by and took the report, telling me they’d put out a city-wide on the car. I wished I could have gotten the plate for them, but I mentioned that it might have a couple of bullet holes in it.

  After getting the release, and a prescription for antibiotics and pain, if I needed it, we left. I had Chappie drive me to my house so I could pick up the Beretta before I went back for the Beater at the gym. I needn’t have bothered because a host of police and evidence techs were processing the scene, complete with big, portable spotlights. I walked them through the fight, and showed them the signs.

  “The blood there is probably mine,” I said, pointing to a trail across the alley. I’m also left a bloody handprint on the fence and side of the garage. They found some more splatterings in the vicinity of where my assailant had been, which increased my belief that I’d hit him with at least one of the rounds. As it turned out, I’d had one shot left. The gun was a six-shot, Smith & Wesson, three-fifty-seven Magnum. Second only to the new fifty calibers and old Dirty Harry’s gun for leaving big old holes in people.

  Now, I crested a hill and felt a throbbing in my arm where the stitches were. Maybe this run hadn’t been the brightest idea I’d had, but I was committed to finishing. I just took a shortcut and headed back around. Best to vary my usual routine until I figured out if the attack had been a random act of violence, or something more specific.

  In my business I’d made plenty of enemies, but something was bugging me about this one. In that instant before I moved, I’d sensed something. Maybe it was the
expression in the man’s eyes, but something in my gut told me that he was going to fire. But if the dude had been intent on killing me, wouldn’t it have been simpler to just shoot me and then take my wallet? It was almost as if they wanted to make it look like a stick-up gone bad. Plus, if there were two of them, why did one hold back, watching from across the street with the get-away ride? That seemed to add a bit of sophistication to a simple stick-up. Maybe they didn’t think I was that tough . . . The guy’s accent. He’d said, “Vallet. Give me your vallet.” And an hour or so before that, some Spetsnaz asshole was in the gym scoping me out. Coincidence? I didn’t think so.

  Spetsnaz . . .Russkies . . . Hadn’t Thad the Cad mentioned a bunch of Russkies had picked up Bayless’s body from Furman County? Things were suddenly taking on a new urgency with this one. I had to get to the bottom of it fast, or keep looking over my shoulder. I was going to have to lean on the sweet-smelling jerk at the funeral home. As I rounded the last turn before heading down the block toward my house, I checked the cars on both sides of the street. The same ones as when I’d left earlier. The two Russkies had known I worked out at the gym, but so did a lot of people. It was advertised in the window and most likely would come up in a Google search from some of the articles that had been written about me. I always mentioned Chappie. But not where I lived. I’d have to work to keep it that way.

  As I showered I heard my phone ringing, and when I checked the message it was George. His voice sounded agitated on the tape.

  “What the hell is this, you get cut up and shot at and you don’t call me? I got two dicks from Violent Crimes that need to interview you ASAP. Call me as soon as you get this, dammit.”

  Good old George.

  I dialed his number and he answered on the first ring.

  “You all right?” he asked. There was a lot of angry frustration in his tone, but an undercurrent of concern, too.

  “I’m fine. Now who are these two dicks who want to talk to me?”

  “Norris and Cate. Good guys. They knew that I know you, so they reached out this morning. Said you got stabbed.”

  “Slashed is more like it. But I think I winged the asshole.”

  “You did. They found the car. Abandoned in an alley a few blocks away. Blood all over the interior.”

  “Any leads?”

  “Nah, stolen earlier that night. Taken from a garage. The owner didn’t even know it was missing. My guess is they had another car parked nearby the dump site for a clean getaway.”

  I considered this. That showed more sophisticated planning and foresight. Steal a car to do the dirty deed, one that won’t be missed for a while, and then leave it when you’re done and drive calmly away in your own ride.

  George’s voice interrupted my reverie. “I’ll bring the guys over now for the interview, okay?”

  “Give me a bit. I just got back from a run. I need to shower.”

  “You ran?” I heard him laugh. “You tough bastard, you.”

  “Keeps me outta the bars,” I said. “Take them over to Karson’s and I’ll meet you guys there in about forty.”

  It took me closer to an hour, but that was only because I wanted to make sure no one was following me. No one was. By the time I got to the restaurant, I was chiding myself for being so extra-cautious. But, I reflected as I got out and scanned the parking lot, that’s what kept me alive this long.

  Paul Norris and Lincoln Cate turned out to be a salt-and-pepper team as well as a couple of good guys, like George had said. After the introduction and hand shaking, they got right down to brass tacks.

  “You think this was a random thing, Ron, or could it be related to something you’re working on?” Cate asked. He was a black guy who looked to be in his early thirties.

  “I was just asking myself that question on my run this morning,” I said. The stall was automatic. I never liked to share details of what I was working on, who my clients were, with cops, except for George. It was bad for business to reveal that kind of stuff offhand. But in this case, I couldn’t afford not to. If those two guys had been gunning for me, I needed to call out the troops to start beating the bushes. I gave them a quick rundown of the Bayless case, and also mentioned the Russians, the funeral home, and the Spetsnaz joker who’d stopped by the gym.

  “Spetz-what?” Norris asked. He was the white guy, and a bit shorter than his partner, but just as young.

  “Spetsnaz,” I said. “The Russian Special Forces. Supposed to be some real bad dudes.”

  Cate grinned. “Not so bad if you disarmed one of them and shot him to boot.”

  “He’s good with kicking the shit out of big Russians,” George said. He proceeded to tell them how he’d won a bundle on my fight with Sergei.

  “This guy wasn’t as tough as Sergei,” I said, “but he had pretty good moves. Good street fighter.”

  “We got the word out to all the local hospitals,” Cate said. “If the motherfucker’s gut-shot, he’s gonna need to see the docs.”

  “Plus we had our ETs go over the car with a fine-tooth comb,” Norris added. “You know it was a steamer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The gun you took from him turned out to be hot, too,” he said. “Taken in a burglary a few months ago. We got some partials off the ammunition. We’ll need you to give us some elimination prints.”

  “Mine are on file,” I said. “Plus, I didn’t touch any of the shells.”

  He nodded.

  After another chorus of promises to keep me in the loop, Norris and Cate left in their unmarked. George stared at me from across the table.

  “So how come you didn’t call me last night?” he asked, his head tilting to the side slightly.

  I watched him take a long sip of his cold coffee.

  “There wasn’t any reason to,” I said. I motioned for the waitress. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

  “Some prick tries to ice you in an alley and it’s no big deal?”

  “I handled it.”

  “Yeah, and got your arm all sliced up in the meantime.”

  I realized he was just feeling like my surrogate big brother, a little PO’d for me not running to him after a fight. In a lot of ways, George had been more of a big brother to me than my real older brother, Tom. But calling him last night hadn’t been in the cards. The main reason was I had Chappie with me, and he and George were like oil and water. “I must have been out of it more than I realized. I apologize.”

  He smirked. The waitress arrived to freshen up our cups, and asked if we wanted to order something else. George looked at me expectantly. “It’s my day off, so I could go for some eggs.”

  We got our usual and he leaned his elbows on the table. “I got those damn printouts you wanted at work. Didn’t think you’d need them till Monday.”

  “No problem. I’ve got a couple things going this weekend anyway.”

  “Such as?”

  “What, are you checking up on me?”

  “When you maybe got some guys gunning for you, yeah.”

  “This is a bodyguard thing tonight for a reporter. Ever watch Midwest Focus?”

  “That news program? That the one with the babe reporter?”

  “Alex St. James.”

  He frowned. “I thought her name was Gabriela, or something.”

  I shook my head. “I have the enviable task of guarding her delectable body while she goes undercover as a homeless person.”

  He grinned. “Sounds like a nice gig. Right up your alley.” Then his expression got totally serious. “Just do one thing for me, okay?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “What’s that?”

  “Keep your peter in your pants. I don’t want you distracted and thinking about romance until we bring down these guys that are after you.”

  “Well, that won’t be much of a problem. I had dinner with her the other night and she’s a first-class ice princess.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  I nodded. “Tried all the Shade charm, and it had absolutely
no effect.”

  “No kidding?” He feigned amazement. “She a lesbian?”

  I chuckled. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, maybe she’s smarter than I gave her credit for,” he said. “I’ll have to start watching that show.”

  Before I could think of a good comeback, the waitress came with our food.

  Visiting hours at St. Francis started at two and I was informed by a strict-looking nurse that because Big Rich was in the intensive care unit, the visit couldn’t last more than five minutes. As we walked down the hallway I brushed her arm.

  “How’s he doing?” I asked.

  “Not bad,” she said. “He needs to quit smoking if he wants to live, though.”

  “I’ve been telling him that for years.”

  She frowned. “He tried to fool us the other day. We walked him to the bathroom and helped sit him down, then we left him and the next thing we heard a crash. When we opened the door, he was on the floor.” The frown deepened. “He’d snuck a cigarette into the washroom with him. Lord knows where he got it and the lighter, but it put him right down.”

  “That sounds like Rich,” I said. “He can be resourceful when he wants to be.”

  We stopped by the entrance. “Well, don’t give him anything like that, sir. I only shared that with you to convey the delicate nature of his condition. All right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When I walked in I saw him propped up reading the Metro, his long hair pulled back into a ponytail and the thick glasses perched on his wide nose. He looked up and smiled, but it was perhaps the weakest smile I’d ever seen.

  “How you doing, buddy?” I asked.

  His head lolled to the side. “I’d be doing a lot better if I could grab a smoke from you.” Just saying those few words seemed to wind him.

  “I’ll bet. But you and I both know that ain’t gonna happen.” I looked around the room. It was small and sterile, with a ceiling-to-floor-length curtain drawn around the bed. Numerous wires and IVs were hooked up to his chest and connected to a bunch of monitors. I watched an erratic line trace his heartbeat across one of the screens.