by Robert Greer
“He's doing just fine.”
“Good to hear,” Triplett said sarcastically. “But mob connections aside, if you're lookin’ to run down why Grimes and the Bird kid were murdered, I'd say you're almost sure to have to look west to Vegas. And I'm thinkin’ that your boy Mario's connections are way too rusty to help with that, especially if some Nevada desert rat gets his nose out of joint.”
“Then I'll tread lightly.”
“Do that. ’Cause I sure wouldn't want any part of that exquisite body of yours to end up gettin’ bruised.” Triplett licked his lips sensuously.
“Got another question for you,” said Flora Jean, ignoring the comment. “You've always had your finger on the pulse of what goes down in Five Points. What have you heard about Theo Wilhite losin’ a bundle on last spring's NCAA championship game?”
Triplett poked out his lower lip and eyed her thoughtfully. “You thinkin’ that maybe Blackbird was murdered over some kinda gambling scam gone bad?”
“It's crossed my mind.”
Triplett sat back in his chair and massaged the cleft in his chin. “Yeah, I've heard about Wilhite losin’ ten big ones last spring. Who the hell hasn't, big as that man's mouth is? But I don't think Wilhite would go after Shandell because of that. We both know Theo's a lot more mouth than action.”
“Yeah, you and I know that. But what if some of the people Grimes and Epps wrote about in that dusty old Pulitzer piece didn't like the idea that Wilhite was runnin’ around Denver mouthin’ off that he'd lost his ten grand on a game they fixed? Wouldn't make ’em look real civic-minded.”
“Possible. But the people you're talkin’ about have bigger fish to fry than the likes of Theo Wilhite. My guess is that if Theo was crampin’ their style, they'd have taken care of him long ago.”
“Then maybe Wilhite's tongue-waggin’ got some lesser underworld types with ties to the gamblin’ world thinkin’ real hard about keepin’ Shandell quiet. Not the kind of biggies who set the odds, or your high rollers, but the kinda folks who lost a nice little nest egg—maybe ten, fifteen, or twenty grand, like him. Could be they wanted to settle up with the guy who was doin’ the point-shavin’ that cost ’em.”
“Could be,” Triplett said with a respectful nod. “But why would they wait from last April until now to settle up with Shandell and kill Grimes, and still let Theo Wilhite walk?”
Flora Jean shrugged. “Don't have an answer for the Theo question. But as for Grimes, maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Unlikely.”
“Yeah, you're probably right. Here's a final question for you.”
Pouting, Triplett said, “You're gonna make me cry, Flora Jean. Why you gotta sail outta here so fast? I was hopin’ to sit here and feast my eyes on you for the rest of the day.”
“Sorry, sugar. Guess you'll just have to spend that time dreamin’ about somethin’ else. So here's my question. If there were some pointshavin’ shenanigans involved in last spring's NCAA final, who do you think Theo used to steer him to the right bookie?”
“Afraid you'll have to ask him that. But I can tell you who was probably handling the money at the top around here. Garrett Asalon.”
“Yeah, I sorta figured that. Guess I'll have to get Mario to give me the current skinny on Asalon.”
“What do you need to know besides the fact that for the past twenty years he's been Colorado's gamblin’ kingpin? And Wyoming and New Mexico's, as far as that goes.”
Flora Jean gave Triplett a quick wink. “Always pays to know more than less about infected alley cats, sugar. Helps you keep from get-tin’ scratched. Guess I'll have to talk to Theo Wilhite myself and see if he was usin’ a middleman or goin’ straight to Asalon with his bettin’. Tell you this, though: Theo's one slippery little bugger. I've already missed catchin’ up with him at his place twice today. But like my mama used to say, sooner or later, even night owls and mourning doves gotta come home.”
“Smart lady,” said Triplett with a grin. “Now, as for home, you're always welcome to spend the night here.”
“Sorry, but I've already got a home. Besides, I'm afraid I'd never feel real comfortable around here.”
“Why's that?”
“Because I'd never know when another bluebird might fly in and wanta fill my nest.”
“You're hurtful, girl,” Triplett said, looking wounded.
“Just callin’ things the way they are.”
“That's your right, I guess. But if you ever overcome your sense of loyalty and dump the good general, remember, I'm here for the takin’.”
“Good to know,” said Flora Jean, rising from her chair and heading for the door. “Always important to know which trapdoors to shy away from. Thanks for the info, sugar.” Glancing over her shoulder, she gave Triplett a seductive parting wink. It was the kind of wink that said, Wear your eyeballs out all you want, sugar. But don't you dare ever touch.
Wordell Epps seemed cordial enough a half hour later when Flora Jean called him at his Rocky Mountains News office and asked to meet with him. He sounded almost giddy, in fact, like some high school sophomore who'd just scored a date for the big dance. He agreed to meet her at 5:30 at his place in the Capitol Hill section of Denver and announced, thinking she might be unfamiliar with the neighborhood, “The building's a block and a half south of Col-fax, on Pearl, just up the street from Argonaut Liquors,” before hanging up.
As she stood across the street, trying to figure out why a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist like Epps was living on the fourth floor of a dilapidated building that looked as if it had been intentionally constructed to look run-down and was probably largely inhabited by transients, she had the sense that Arnett Triplett had been right on the money in his assessment of Wordell Epps.
On guard as she approached the building, she stepped inside a dimly lit five-story atrium that echoed with the noises of crying children and blaring TVs. Thinking as the smells of the place engulfed her, I've been here before—lived here before, she headed for a darkened set of stairs, unwilling to ride the elevator. It reminded her far too much of elevator rides from her youth when men with liquor on their breath and coins jangling in their pockets would ride up with her and her mother to their East St. Louis apartment, then pay her a quarter or half-dollar to keep riding the elevator for a while before disappearing inside the apartment with her mother.
By the time she reached the door to Epps's apartment, her ears were ringing, something that hadn't happened since she'd attended her heroin-addicted mother's funeral fifteen years earlier. As she stood at the door trying to decide whether to knock or push the filthy doorbell that had electrical tape and loose wire poking from beneath it, she remembered what Arnett Triplett had said about Epps's disjointedness and wondered whether Epps might be suffering from the aftermath of the same kind of dysfunctional childhood she'd endured.
After several firm knocks, no one answered, so she reluctantly rang the doorbell.
“Coming,” someone inside yelled.
“About time,” she muttered.
Moments later, a skinny, glassy-eyed white man appeared at the door. He had a ponytail, an unruly mop of silver hair, and a meticulously groomed jet-black and quite obviously dyed Vandyke jutting from his chin. Taken aback by the man's look of dishevelment, Flora Jean almost said, “I'll be damned.” Instead she asked, “Wordell Epps?”
“In the flesh.” Epps flashed Flora Jean a toothy grin. “And if I'm guessing right, you'd be Ms. Benson. Come on in.”
“Thank you.” Flora Jean walked down a narrow hall and into a boxy looking twenty-five-by-twenty-five-foot room that was carpeted wall to wall with filthy gold shag carpet, a relic of the early 1970s. Bamboo curtains hung unevenly at the two windows, and a couple of late-’60s college-dorm-room-style smoked-glass coffee-table tops with cinder blocks for legs sat in the center of the room. The makeshift tables were surrounded by a ring of four well-used, cracked vinyl beanbag chairs.
As she waited for h
er eyes to adjust to the smoky dimness, Flora Jean realized that the place reeked of marijuana.
In a voice brimming with an extended flower-child welcome, Epps said, “Offer you a joint?”
“No, thanks,” she said, aware now of at least one reason why the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist lived the way he did.
“It's good shit. Sure you wanta pass?”
“I'm sure,” Flora Jean said with a hint of sadness as she recalled a time during the Persian Gulf War when she'd watched her captain stick the barrel of his .45 into the ear of a mission-endangering fellow marine who'd been high on marijuana just minutes before a mission and announce in the calmest of voices, I'd kill ya right now, son, if I wasn't the one who had to write home to your mama and say you got yourself killed in action. After watching her mother die and seeing friends flush their lives and military careers down the tube because of drugs, she'd long ago become unable to tolerate drug use.
“Okay by me. I try not to judge people on the basis of their skin color or recreational habits,” Epps said in a tone meant to let Flora Jean know he expected the same attitude from her. He took a toke of his joint. “So we're here for our meeting, just like you asked, Ms. Benson, and since you're the one who called the meeting, you might as well be the one to get the first shot in.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Flora Jean, shaking off a flood of bad memories. “Like I told you on the phone, I'm lookin’ into the deaths of Shan-dell Bird and Paul Grimes.”
“Why and for whom?” Epps's response was quick and surprisingly reporter-like.
Aware that no matter how dulled by drugs Epps might seem, she was still matching wits with a dirt-digging Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Flora Jean said, “The why's easy, sugar. I'm lookin’ for a murderer. Who I'm workin’ for, now, I'm afraid that's my business.”
“I see. I'm guessing you're not new at this—looking into murder and those kinds of things.”
“And neither are you. So now that we've sniffed each other's undies, can we move on down the road to business?”
“Touché.” Epps took another long toke off his joint and seemed to suck in every surrounding molecule of air. “How well did you know Shandell Bird?” he asked, exhaling slowly.
“Pretty well. But I'm guessin’ you knew Paul Grimes a whole lot better.”
“You'd be guessing right,” Epps said boastfully. “I knew him from the time we started out as cub reporters at the Rocky. I knew him when we were both graveyard-shift police-beat reporters, begging for something important to happen so we could write about it. Knew him when he was up. Knew him when he was down. I kept him from sinking into the abyss when his wife left him for another woman and shored him up when his baby boy died from pneumonia.”
Epps paused, as if he needed to get his bearings, and Flora Jean realized that he'd become misty-eyed.
“He kept me afloat too,” Epps said, sounding suddenly defensive. “Like when I got temporarily fired from the Rocky years ago because of on-the-job drug use. Paulie was the one who convinced the asshole higher-ups to take me back. Said he'd leave on the spot and walk out the door with our newly minted Pulitzer if they didn't. And when I screwed up a second time, he stood in there with me again. He's the one who got me this apartment. The one who made me go to work every day. Bottom line is, Ms. Benson, dead or alive, I owe the man.”
“And your plan to repay him is?”
“Direct and to the point. Sure you've never been a journalist?”
Flora Jean shook her head.
“No secret,” Epps said with a toss of his head. “I plan to find out who killed Paulie and to make sure they pay.”
“Nothin’ wrong with that. Sorta coincides with the mission I'm on.”
Epps looked surprised. “Mission? You sound like a soldier.”
“Was one once.”
“I see. So what do you do now to get your kicks?”
“I'm a bond surety agent.”
“A bail bondsman! Damn, never would've guessed that. Private eye perhaps, or maybe a onetime cop or even an insurance fraud investigator. But a bail bondsman! No way.”
“Well, now you know.”
“So I do. And why, if you don't mind me asking, all the interest in the murder of some NBA player? You know, when you come right down to it, most of them are nothing more than dopers just like me.” Epps flashed Flora Jean a sly, knowing smile. “Different drugs, that's all. Trust me, I know.”
Flora Jean shook her head. “Shandell wasn't the doper kind. I knew the boy from the time he was ten. Drugs woulda never have been in the cards for him.”
Epps took a final chest-expanding drag off what was left of his fat boy, shook his head, and tossed the still-lit joint onto the carpet. Noticing the look of concern on Flora Jean's face, he said, “Stuff's not but three ninety-nine a yard at the carpet-remnant store. And it's fire retardant.” He ground the joint into the carpet with the ball of his foot. “Now, as for Bird, I know this for a fact. Paulie was working on a story about him. Had been for some time.”
“Do you know what the story was gonna be about?”
“Not for certain, but it involved drug use among college athletes, and I know Paulie intended it to be a blockbuster. He expected it to be a big enough piece to get him back into the Pulitzer game. I also know that Bird and Paulie didn't exactly see eye to eye. Paulie told me so himself.”
“How bad was the friction between them?”
“Bad enough for Paulie to think about getting himself some kind of protection. The kind that shoots bullets.”
Epps suddenly began bobbing and weaving like a punch-drunk boxer. Recognizing that he had slipped into his own special euphoric comfort zone, Flora Jean said, “One last question for you. Why so hard on the cops in your piece in the Rocky this morning? I read between the lines. You insinuated that they weren't givin’ Grimes's killin’ the same kinda priority as Bird's.”
“I got no use for cops, that's why. Most of ’em are assholes.” Epps's words were as loud as they were slurred.
“I take it you've had some problems with the boys in blue.”
Epps laughed. “That's for me to know and you to find out, Ms. Benson. We about done here?”
“Pretty much. Except for this. Could your friend Grimes also have been workin’ on a story about Shandell or any of his teammates shavin’ points during last spring's NCAA tournament?”
“Could've been.” Epps let out a loud burp.
Realizing from the size of his pupils and his increasing unsteadiness that Epps had to have been enjoying the chronic habit long before she'd arrived, Flora Jean simply shook her head.
Reacting with a smile, Epps said, “Or maybe he was workin’ on a story about our next manned space flight to the moon, or the definitive piece on global warming. You never knew when it came to Paulie. He was a Pulitzer Prize winner, you know.”
“So I've heard.” Flora Jean rose from her chair and started toward the door, realizing that she had reached the point of diminishing returns when it came to Epps.
“Sorry you have to leave, Ms. Benson,” said Epps, looking lost in a fog. “You find out who killed your man, and I'll find out who killed mine. Fair enough?” he called out as Flora Jean reached the front door.
“Fair enough,” Flora Jean called back, closing the door behind her before gulping a mouthful of stale but far less intoxicating air.
Chapter 10
She was the kind of person who demanded that everything have its time, that everything be in its place. So when Wordell Epps appeared as she left her daily health-club workout at a club halfway between Denver and Fort Collins, looking disheveled and glassy-eyed and reeking of marijuana, pouncing on her with an intrusive “Excuse me” as she came out of the club's inner sanctum into its reception area, it was all Alicia Phillips could do to keep from screaming and punching him. And she would have if the young woman looking on from behind the club's wide-arching reception desk hadn't been in her adult psychology class at CSU the previous semest
er. Phillips didn't think it would seem quite proper to deck a homeless-looking person in front of a former student, no matter how appropriate the circumstances.
Although she'd been immersed for years in the trappings of academe, in spite of an endowed professorship and a national reputation as a sports psychologist, she'd never had much difficulty reverting to her Montana-cowgirl self. That self had mucked horse stalls, broken up river ice for cattle in 20-below-zero weather, and pulled calves on her parents’ five-thousand-acre ranch outside Billings on too many mornings at 3 a.m. She'd done those things from the time she'd been old enough to walk, it seemed, until she'd left for college at Montana State a few weeks past turning seventeen.
Her ranching days seemed like a lifetime ago to her now. She often longed for those days of lost innocence now that she was a forty-five-year-old professor whose rise to national prominence in the sports psychology community had been meteoric. The days, the times, and even the smells of the ranch had never left her, and although she realized that she could never go back to being Miss Montana Junior Rodeo Queen or spending days trailing cattle, that independent spirit still coursed through her veins.
Sensing that he'd be sorry if he took another step toward the stocky five-foot-eight woman with closely cropped sun-bleached hair and deeply tanned, leathery skin, Wordell Epps took a step back, shook off the marijuana-induced cobwebs that nowadays always seemed to fill his brain, and said, “Aahhh … Dr. Phillips? I think we need to talk.”
Alicia once again eyed the girl behind the reception desk, trying to gauge the level of her interest. Realizing that her former student had turned her attention to an overhead television to the left of her desk, she authoritatively said to Epps, “And you are?”
“Wordell Epps. I'm … I was a friend of Paul Grimes. His best friend, in fact, when you come right down to it. We won the Pulitzer together. He told me this is where you worked out most days after work. I raced all the way up here from Denver hoping to catch you.”