Edelman was visible through the disrupted blinds. There was a woman with him, but Jacks couldn’t see her clearly. They were talking. Edelman was reaching toward her, and then he moved beyond Jacks’ field of vision.
He heard the sound of approaching footsteps and pulled his coat higher. People usually gave a wide berth to men loitering in alleys.
“Get the hell out of here!” A harsh and belligerent voice assaulted him.
Jacks grunted and pretended to be drunk.
“Didn’t you hear me?” the voice came again. “Get your goddamned homeless ass outta here! Don’t make me have to tell you again, goddammit!”
Jacks turned his head enough to see who had approached him. He recognised the face although his only previous encounter with it had been brief. It was the driver – the man who had crashed his car trying to run over Edelman.
The man was startled when Jacks straightened up. He had apparently not expected anyone who might challenge him. There was a muscle-bound hard-ass with him, so Jacks took his hand out of his pocket.
“You know what this is?” Jacks conspicuously dropped a small metal object…
The man looked at him curiously.
“Here, take a look at it.”
Jacks stepped closer to the two men.
“What do you want to do – shoot me, cut me? If I drop this grenade, you’ll be dead before you even think about running.”
“Hell, I ain’t in this,” the second man said.
Jacks pulled his pistol with his other hand, and the driver stood there frozen.
“If I shoot you, nothing happens, but if anything happens to me, we all die.”
Jacks smiled at him. He liked screwing with tough guys. It gave him a certain satisfaction and a sense of power that the pills stole from him.
The driver snatched a pistol from his belt and called Jacks’ bluff.
“Then we all die,” he said.
“I’m gone,” the second man said. “I’m gone.” He started backing away. “I didn’t sign on for this.”
“Shut up!” the driver yelled.
“What are you doing here?” Jacks said.
“You first,” the driver replied in a voice much calmer than the situation demanded.
They stared at each other, then for a fraction of a second the driver glanced away. Jacks followed his line of vision. He was scrutinising the same apartment Jacks had been watching, but the light had gone out.
“I’m gonna walk away,” the driver said. “You do what you gotta do.”
Jacks let him go. There was no good way for crap like this to end. He felt the second man’s pain. This was deeper than the job he had signed on to do. He slid the fake hand grenade back into his coat pocket. He needed more answers, more money, or both.
* * *
“You got your nerve coming over here and getting in my face over something like this.”
Angela Edelman was posturing. Her neck was working overtime. Jacks suspected she did a lot of that. It was part of her personality. It made her appear in control.
“What good is he going to do me dead?” she continued. “I want his sorry ass healthy so he can cut me a cheque.”
“Who do you think would want him dead?” Jacks asked.
“You mean bad enough to hire somebody to kill him? Hmmph. Why don’t you ask some of his street whores?”
“Street whores don’t pay for killings. If need be, they do it themselves. These were gun-carrying locals. They don’t cost much, but they ain’t amateurs.”
She slumped into a chair and sighed. “I don’t wish Myron anything bad. I’m over him. I simply don’t care anymore.”
She stared out of her bay window overlooking Niskey Lake. Jacks recognised a kind of sadness in her. Myron had kept her well. She lived on Atlanta’s south side hidden among the famous who themselves lived anonymously amongst the nouveau riche. It was a life she had no desire to leave, and without Edelman, had no ability to maintain. Killing Edelman was certainly not in her best interest.
“I’ll pay you extra to make sure Myron stays alive,” she whispered.
“What?”
“You heard me.” She didn’t look at him.
“How much?” He felt bad about asking that question, and her scowl almost made him regret it.
“Two thousand dollars if you get me what I want.”
“No problem.”
What she wanted consisted of names, times and pictures. She wanted to know if Myron was low enough to jump any of those fifteen-year-old-rap-wannabees. She wanted to slap him so hard he’d negotiate anything just to keep it out of court. Jacks just wanted enough money to dump his antidepressants. Cash could be a wonderful mood elevator.
* * *
It’s hard to remain anonymous in the city, especially for a person who revels in his reputation.
They call it going for bad. Somebody had to know “the driver” and Jacks knew how to drag the streets for information.
The driver’s name was Ramar Tate, a man known for doing almost anything but nothing particularly honourable. He wasn’t a professional killer, just someone who was willing to kill – if the price was right. Suddenly he had become an important part of Jacks’ life. Myron Edelman needed to stay alive so that Angela could get paid, and Angela needed to get paid so that Jacks could get paid.
Jacks watched Tate make his customary rounds – the brief stops, collections and intimidations that provided him sustenance at the expense of another’s weakness. A man like that needed killing, just for the hell of it.
Def Watch Records was a curious stop.
Jacks followed him inside and scowled with a practiced expression that dared the receptionist to ask him anything as he walked past. Carriage and attitude meant everything if a man had the nerve to use them.
This was Def Watch’s uptown office, away from the hood – a location calculated to prevent the millions of attitude-waving brothers and neck-popping sisters from realising that their frenzied support kept Jake Stein laughing all the way to the bank.
“You move, mothafucka, and I’ll waste your ass!” The owner of the unexpected voice put a muzzle in Jacks’ back and confiscated his guns.
“Damn!”
Jacks had that sinking feeling like a ton of very bad crap was about to fall on him. His little ploy hadn’t worked. The receptionist must have called one of Tate’s boys from out front as soon as he had walked past her.
“Don’t kill him in here!” Stein protested after Tate’s man had forced Jacks into his office. “Get him outta here. I don’t want this shit connected to me.”
“You’re Riley Jacks, ain’t you – that crazy ex-cop?” Tate asked as he perused his quarry. “You still carrying that fake hand grenade?” He grinned maliciously. “What the hell do you want anyway?”
Jacks shrugged. “Why are you trying to kill Myron Edelman?” he said.
“Who?”
Jacks tried not to show his surprise. Tate’s response had been genuine. He was sure of it, but he had to push harder.
“What about it, Jake? You the man around here. None of the rest of these boys got enough juice to pay for a killing.”
“You’re in way over your head, Jacks, and it’s gonna cost you,” Stein growled.
“Edelman’s worth money to me, Jake. Whatever your problem is with him, let’s work it out.”
“Where you’re goin’, you ain’t gonna need no money,” Tate sneered.
Tate stepped closer to Jacks. He jammed the pistol’s muzzle against his head.
“You’re showing up at too many places where I happen to be,” he said. “I don’t know what you know, but you won’t know it for long.”
“I said, get him outta here,” Stein repeated. “I won’t have this in here.”
Tate hustled Jacks down the back stairs and into an alley in spite of his protestations and attempts to explain. He was without weapons and outnumbered, and they didn’t give a damn about his spying for Edelman’s wife. He was simply a problem t
hat they didn’t need to have. His purpose wasn’t even relevant to them. They whacked him on the head and shoved him into the trunk of a car. He could feel it moving. It stopped briefly, and then accelerated again. He suspected that they were on the street now. It was stop and go – transient stops followed by rapid acceleration. At the next stop Jacks popped the trunk and hit the pavement running.
Stupidity was a common thread among the criminal element. It was hard to find a new car without a child-proof trunk anymore. The blare of horns and the screech of brakes followed him as he dodged cars in the afternoon traffic. The bright sun accentuated the throbbing in his head and almost made him blind. Even so, he could see Tate and his accomplice bearing down on him. He made it to the sidewalk and stumbled through crowds of pedestrians. His eyes desperately scanned his surroundings. There was never a policeman around when somebody really needed one.
His eyes settled on a bank. He ran as fast as he could, but they were gaining on him. He made it to the glass doors and tried to decelerate to a nonchalant walk. He smiled at the security guard, a man in his early sixties with greying hair.
“Excuse me, Sir,” he greeted the guard cordially.
The guard returned a pleasant smile and started to respond. Jacks stepped on his foot, grabbed his arm, twisted him around and had his gun before the old man could blink.
“Sorry,” he said before stepping back through the glass door and planting two bullets in the chest of Tate’s partner who had the misfortune of being the closest.
Tate froze and started to back away as onlookers screamed and scattered.
“You can’t run that fast, man,” Jacks warned. “You’re not after Myron Edelman?” he asked.
“I got who I wanted. I just didn’t finish the job yet.”
The barely audible sound of police sirens sang in the distance.
“I don’t think either of us wants to be here when this goes down,” Tate said.
Jacks never ignored wisdom regardless of the source. He lowered the weapon and backed away, and they both disappeared in opposite directions.
* * *
Jacks felt like he was on the run. He didn’t relish having killed one of Jake Stein’s men, but the way things were going, he’d probably have to kill some more before he could find a way out of this. Killing was always a bad thing, but a person could get away with killing a thug or someone too poor to matter. Anyone could do it once, but multiple kills incited too much attention. That made the police obligated to look harder even if they didn’t really care.
Jacks slouched in a rear corner booth at The Castle. It was a place without windows, a popular way of building clubs thirty years ago when black lights and Day-Glo posters were all the rage. He chewed on a burger that tasted like it was cooked in last week’s grease. This wasn’t a place where Jake Stein would look. They still played B.B. King and Bobby “Blue” Bland rather than the hip-hop rhythms that garnered Jake his money.
Wrong again. Jacks realised that when he stepped into the street again. A young white guy in a black business suit leaned against a Mercedes with tinted windows parked in front of the club. He came to attention as Jacks exited the building. White people didn’t come here unless they were bad-asses. Bad-asses could go anywhere. Race was no impediment to real bad-asses.
Jacks started up the street to his left and the man shifted to intercept him. Jacks changed directions, and the man shifted again. He sized the younger man up. He was too old to outrun him, and he didn’t need to kill anybody else today.
“Mr Jacks! I’m not here to cause you a problem. I’ve been instructed to give you something,” the young man said.
Jacks surveyed the empty street before easing the pistol from his belt.
“Who’s in the car?”
“A benefactor,” the young man said.
“Get him out of the car.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr Jacks. Our benefactor prefers to remain anonymous.”
“Look…”
“Mr Jacks, why don’t you take a look at what we’re offering?”
The man reached gingerly into his inside pocket using two fingers and retrieved a fat envelope. He dropped it on the pavement between them on Jacks’ instruction. Jacks counted ten one-hundred dollar bills and lowered his weapon to a less threatening position.
“Who do I have to kill for this?”
“Our benefactor wants you to keep that as a down payment.”
“On what?”
“On seeing that things turn out right,” the young man explained. “We’ve been told that you are a man who can arrange for things to turn out right.”
“What things? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re the detective, aren’t you, Mr Jacks. You’ll figure it out.”
The young man opened the driver’s door of the Mercedes.
“Our benefactor wants you to know that Jake Stein has no interest in Myron Edelman,” he said before starting the engine.
“What? What do you mean? How does he know that?”
The Mercedes moved away leaving Jacks without an answer. Suddenly everybody wanted to give him money. Maybe his luck was finally changing. He just didn’t know what he had to do to keep it that way.
* * *
The one place that Myron Edelman didn’t seduce women was at his home. That’s why he was never there. Edelman knew his wife was having him followed, and his home was such an obvious point of surveillance that he simply never used it for anything except sleep. Jacks had long ago stopped wasting his time watching Edelman’s condominium, but not on this night.
Edelman almost jumped out of his skin when Jacks appeared at his door. It was a secured, high-rise condo with absolutely no access without a security card. Only two kinds of people could broach that kind of security – very big people or very small ones. Jacks knew the small people – those who serviced the well-to-do. A janitor was willing to look the other way to repay a favour.
Edelman threatened to call bodyguards. He threatened to call the police.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Myron. All I want is a drink and a chat.”
Edelman just stood there with one of those trapped expressions on his face.
“Your wife is really pissed with you, Myron. You screwed up big-time.”
Something about the casual tone of Jacks’ voice must have relaxed Edelman because he seemed to relent and stood aside to allow him to enter.
“Yeah,” Edelman sighed. “Tell me about it. You’ve been following me. You work for her?” He poured Jacks a rum and coke without asking his preference.
“Yeah, she wants your money, Myron. I guess I do too since she’s paying me.”
“I see,” Edelman said. “You the one who tried to run me down or has she hired more than one of you?”
“Not me, Myron. I want you to stay healthy. I worried about Angela for a minute, but I don’t think so. If you die, it gets to be a helluva hassle getting paid. Angela wants to lay up in that luxury house overlooking Niskey Lake. She doesn’t want any part of a murder case.”
Edelman looked perplexed.
“You’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time twice.”
“Twice?”
“You don’t know about the second time, but don’t worry about it. Still, it’s too much of a coincidence for me. What about you? What do you know about Jake Stein?”
The music business was cut-throat, and the rap scene seemed saturated with people who didn’t have a problem with violence. Edelman, however, was such a minor player that it was unfathomable that he could be a serious threat to any of Jake Stein’s interests.
Suddenly Edelman’s eyes got big. He started to stand. His mouth opened, but no sound escaped.
Jacks didn’t move. He had seen the shadow from the corner of his eye and knew someone was behind him.
“I’m not your enemy,” Jacks said looking towards the figure bent over in the shadows. “And I won’t be unless you do something stupid.”
; Slowly Jacks turned and faced the pea-shooter for the second time.
“I could take both hits from that and still beat you to death.” Jacks smiled when he said it, but his voice was deadly serious.
“Please, Beverly. Don’t do this. I’m all right.”
Edelman moved quickly and encircled her with his arms. There was a gentle sincerity in his actions as he led the woman to the couch and cushioned her head with a soft pillow.
“She thinks she has to protect me.” He laughed a soft self-deprecating chuckle.
“No she doesn’t,” Jacks replied.
The woman stared at Jacks. The look was belligerent and defiant, but there was something else there. Jacks recognised it from a lifetime of reading people. She was carrying a truckload of pain, and being in love with an aging married man couldn’t have been all that deep.
“What’s your name?” Jacks asked. “Beverly who?”
Edelman answered for her. It seemed his protective nature was working overtime.
“I’m not the womanizer Angela thinks I am, not that it should matter to you. I do, however, have obligations.”
Beverly Jones was seventeen when Myron Edelman discovered her, so he said. She was going to be the next Diana Ross except for the fact that she was just a bit short on talent. When Edelman concluded that her career was not to be, he consoled her in his usual way, but ultimately that wasn’t enough either. It was hard for a young girl to get what she needed from a married man’s leftovers. Eventually she drifted from Myron to drugs, then to prostitution. For what it was worth, it seemed to have hurt Myron deeply, because he really had developed a genuine emotional bond with her.
So after a lot of wasted years, he sat there on the couch pouring out his guts to the man his wife had paid to stick it to him, and it was beginning to dawn on Jacks that even Myron might not have known the real deal.
“What’s between you and Stein, Myron?”
Crime After Crime Page 9