Sleep Don't Come Easy

by McGlothin, Victor

  “And that’s it?” he said, finding it hard to believe her. “I won’t be asked to divulge any forensic evidence or nothing like that?” He smirked at Vera when she shook her head to affirm his question. “Just so you understand I’m not paddling up the creek alone if this goes south. Okay, let’s get wet.” Detective Beasley ran the same type of search that Lucius had but he tweaked the information to shake out non-males. He watched Vera gnaw on her bottom lip. “You’re going to tear a chunk out of it if you’re not too careful.” She stopped after realizing he was talking to her. “Where’d you say you got this list?” he asked again. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

  Beasley circled three of the names on the paper Vera strolled in with. Afterwards, his countenance changed dramatically. One of the names he ruled out immediately because the victim was a biracial male. Another victim happened to be a white female who’d undergone a gender reassignment surgery. Beasley was sure of it because he caught the case himself after the body was discovered. The remaining name didn’t ring a bell whatsoever but that wasn’t unusual since there were holes in the police department’s bookkeeping system. The officer informed Vera of that so she wouldn’t get her hopes up.

  After a round of pleasant goodbyes, Vera folded both pages into her purse and strolled toward the exit. Narcotics Detective Frank Draper casually passed her to get a closer look. He’d been checking out their interaction the whole time. “Beasley, you old dog,” Draper jested. “First, you overdo it with the donuts and now this. What’s the wife and five little Beasleys going to say about your juicy piece of action on the side?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business but Vera’s an old friend, a PI looking into something for a client. I used to toss her a bone every now and again. This time she’s just asking about unsolved homicide cases, gunshot victims and such.”

  “Maybe I can toss the lady PI a bone on occasion too,” the white cop replied. “Any case in particular? I’m down with dark meat.”

  “Sorry, Draper, not that kind of bone. One thing I never liked about narcs, they all think everyone is out to score.”

  While Detective Beasley was protecting Vera’s honor, she was stretching her legs. She walked directly over to the County Sheriff’s Office on the next block. She experienced an eerie feeling that someone was following her, although there wasn’t anyone suspicious lurking around as far as she could tell. The sheriff’s office kept most undesirables away on general principle. Vera knew that criminals with a lick of sense steered clear of that area whenever possible, so she pushed past the glass doors and entered the building with the thought of being followed diminished.

  After she cleared the metal detectors and received her plastic visitor’s badge, Vera stepped off the elevator on the forth floor. Cecelia Montez, a clerk with twenty years on the city’s dime peered over a cubicle wall on cue, as if she’d been waiting for Vera’s arrival. “Hey, Cecelia,” Vera sang. “You’ve got to be up to something, looking that good in the middle of the week.” The Spanish woman wore a pair of slacks tighter than anything Vera dared crawl into. Green polyester was stretching every which way but that didn’t stop the spirited Latina from pulling a pirouette to show off her voluptuous figure.

  “Holà, chica, I have an early lunch date,” Cecelia told her. “My new man is young and greedy so I got to keep it hot and ready.”

  Vera patted her on the shoulder approvingly. “Ooh, I know that’s right. You’ve got to keep the young ones on a short leash.”

  “Tell me about it. I moved him into my place last month so he wouldn’t wander off. If he strays on me, his insurance better be paid up, because you know I don’t play.” Cecelia’s bark was bigger than her bite; knowing that made Vera laugh even louder.

  “Cecelia, you ain’t gonna ever change.”

  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” she replied, with a welcoming gesture for Vera to enter her cubicle. “Who’s running from you now, chica?”

  “Cecelia, I just signed on to help this guy find somebody, but he’s not sure if his head’s on straight.”

  The clerk frowned, nodding toward the sheet of paper Vera had taken from her purse. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  Vera explained as much of the case as she was comfortable with. Although she and Cecelia went back at least nine years, she’d grown way past tired of random digging and hoping to hit pay dirt. If this search failed to pan out, Vera was determined to hand her shovel over to Rags and send him on his way. After Cecelia punched in the name on the page, she hummed a soft Spanish tune mixed in with English-sounding words to amuse herself. Before long Vera was bobbing her head and humming along.

  “Oh, here it is. Harold Newel, died over two years ago,” said Cecelia, as she read notes off the monitor. “This man was into some real rude stuff. He had a lot of priors for drug possession but got it kicked each time. Either he had one hell of a lawyer or somebody was looking out for him on the inside. His luck was running good, for a while. Nine pops and no convictions; maybe he was on a cop’s payroll.”

  “I thought paid informants got protection as part of the standard health plan,” Vera said, jokingly.

  “I don’t know. Too bad poor Harold’s friends couldn’t pull him out of this one. He was found dead in a motel bathroom. Somebody wanted him gone for real. Four shots, two in the face, one in the heart and the other aimed a lot lower.” Cecelia looked at Vera, hoping she hadn’t gotten herself tied up with the people who ended poor Harold.

  Vera winced when a morbid thought kicked her in the head. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but do you have any crime scene photos?”

  “I’ll show you but I haven’t eaten yet, so get what you need while I’m powdering up in the women’s room.” The senior clerk got up from her desk then excused herself without apprehension. She’d run background checks for Vera over the years so leaving her alone and unattended wasn’t out of line. Cecelia’s office worked with private eyes routinely, because they were known to get into places cops couldn’t without a warrant.

  While the clerk was away, Vera read the crime scene report. Harold Newel, age forty-five, dead. There were two paragraphs discussing articles of clothing and drug paraphernalia found in the motel room. After Vera scrolled down to view the crime scene photos, she gathered why Cecelia would rather not carry that vision with her throughout the day. A graphic tribute to blood and guts spanned across the screen. From the description Rags had provided, this stiff wasn’t the one she was after. Harold Newel was short, thin and nearly bald. By the looks of the disfigured corpse, Cecelia was correct in that someone did want him gone for real. She figured it was the work of a deranged killer or a scorned lover with an axe to grind. Either way, Vera felt relieved that Rags wasn’t the responsible party, very relieved.

  Eight

  Despite having studied the disgusting murder scene photos, Vera hopped in her vehicle with food heavy on her mind. When she wheeled onto Commerce from Record Street, the apparent dead end shadowing her investigation had to take an immediate back seat to the glaring feeling that something was terrible wrong. Vera wasn’t incredibly happy with the sometimes undependable Silver Streak but she knew it was riding heavy, about one hundred and eighty pounds too heavy.

  Vera pulled into a full parking lot, then slammed on the brakes. She waved off the lot attendant who’d scurried from his tiny booth, flailing his hand and shouting angrily that there were not any available parking slots. Vera’s stern scowl didn’t seem to stifle the man’s aggressive approach or his animated gestures accompanied by a verbal assault in his native tongue, so she reached inside her purse. When she raised her handgun, the stubby man staggered back with both hands hoisted and his foul mouth shut.

  “Get back before you get hurt,” Vera advised him, through clenched teeth as she exited the truck. She pointed her gun barrel at the back driver’s side window with her shooting hand, then flung the door open with her left. “You’ve got three seconds to get the hell out of my truck
before I start blasting!” Vera didn’t have to bother with the obligatory nonsense of counting. The man hiding in her back compartment raised his hands just as the lot attendant had moments before.

  “Don’t shoot!” he begged, climbing over the rear bench seat. “Don’t shoot. It’s me, Rags.” He jutted his head upward slowly, exhibiting a horde of trepidation and a head full of blond hair. Vera recognized him, sighed deeply then lowered her weapon. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk near the parking lot entrance. She holstered her firearm, snatched a handful of denim from Rags’s jacket then yanked him out onto the cold cement. Rags grimaced as he cowered back against her SUV.

  Shaking her head in disbelief, Vera was mad enough to scream. “You must be trying to die today!” she shouted at him. “I don’t know what to do, shoot you or run you over?”

  “Shoot him!” a young black man hollered from the host of onlookers. “He probably got it coming.”

  Vera considered it then she almost laughed. “Yeah, you probably got it coming, too,” she answered flippantly at the stranger, before ordering Rags to get back into the vehicle through the front passenger door.

  The same fellow who wanted to see some real action frowned when Rags hurriedly complied as he was ordered. “Ahh, man, I’d have capped that white boy.”

  “You wouldn’t have done nothing,” Vera replied harshly. “Now get out of my way before I’m forced to handle up on you next.” Without hesitation, everyone in the audience hustled away as she jumped in and threw the gear and her attitude into reverse. Vera made tracks toward the Interstate, weaving in and out of cars traveling much too slowly for her taste.

  “And you,” she huffed in her passenger’s direction, “I could have killed you, fool. What were you thinking, stowing away in my ride?” Before Rags mounted an answer, Vera huffed again, warning him to shut up. “On second thought, don’t say a damned word. You just sit there and be still until I get you out of here. If someone reported what went on back there, I might have some explaining to do with the police. I’d have to tell them what I’m doing with you in the first place. Hell, that don’t sound like such a bad idea right now.” She glared at Rags then slapped at the steering wheel with the heel of her palm. “Shoot, you got me mad enough to cuss. You’re gonna pay for that.”

  Vera continued seething during the four-mile jaunt on the downtown turnpike. She stared at him intermittently along the way, doing the best she could to refrain from a battering of gutter-style tirades pushing to get out. Vera wanted to question him while issuing ruthless reprimands simultaneously but the venom in her mouth was too thick to dispense. “Ooh, I’m so unhappy with you right now,” she hissed instead. “Have you eaten?” Rags shook his bowed head from side to side. “I figured as much. Don’t let a lack of food make you stupid. Killing you would have been a shame, a damned shame.”

  Vera could tell her client was sorry for his transgression but that was beside the point. She tried to keep that in mind while idling along the street in front of Leftovers, the diner catty-cornered from her office building. “Let’s get something straight, Rags,” she said, in a noticeably softer tone than before. “I know it must be hard dealing with everything that’s been pulling on you, but understand this, you just can’t show up out of the blue like an old boyfriend who messed up a good thing and not expect to get your feelings hurt.”

  “You’re right,” he said finally. “I didn’t want to get in the way, so I thought hanging around was the next best thing.” He raised his head and looked into her eyes for the first time since she’d pulled a gun on him. “I don’t expect you to understand. I can’t say that I would neither. It’s just that I feel you getting close to something. I don’t know, an answer maybe.”

  After Vera discussed what his life expectancy would have been if he pulled another stunt like the last one, she informed Rags that she had been steady on the case with what little he’d given her to go on. With a tone of gladness in her voice, Vera shared that neither the city police nor the sheriff’s department had any knowledge of a homicide victim fitting his description having been murdered in the time frame he was concerned about. Then, in an effort to make things right between them, Vera offered to return half of Rags’s retainer. He refused it immediately.

  “Ms. Miles, that money won’t mean a thing to me if I can’t get any closure on this.”

  Closure? Vera thought to herself. There goes another peek at the flipside of the same coin. She’d seen black men and women change directions like the wind when placed in an environment that offered a favorable outcome for doing so, but never once witnessed it from the opposite side of the fence. There was something different about Rags, something she couldn’t put her finger on. He’d been beat down by the dreams that haunted him. Maybe that’s what made him so humble. She couldn’t know for sure but liked it nonetheless.

  “Rags, if there is anything you left out or something you haven’t told me, now is the time, because I’m flat out of places to look for a murder that no one seems to think happened except you. I say count your blessings and let it go.” Rags pulled and tugged at corners of the piece of paper Vera had gotten from Lucius, the one with three names circled. She watched his fingers bend and fold the page with meticulous precision like he’d done it a million times. It was nothing short of amazing, to see his eyes dart back and forth two steps ahead of his hands. When his hands stopped moving, an expertly crafted paper alligator rested in them. “Uhm, Rags,” Vera whispered, not sure exactly what to say. He remained silent a while then realized that he’d checked out mentally.

  “Who’s Harold Newel?” he asked quietly, staring at the letters encircled along the ridge of the alligator’s back. Vera was speechless. Rags had rolled the dead man’s name off his lips quick and easy, like he’d manipulated that ordinary sheet of paper. “I know this name,” he said, his eyes locked on Vera’s. “Why do I know his name?”

  When she left Cecilia’s desk, she was certain that her client was off the hook. Now she was backpedaling fast. “Did you kill him, Rags?” she questioned cautiously. It felt like waiting on the other shoe to fall, waiting to hear his answer, and praying that she didn’t detect a lie when he did. “Did . . . you . . . kill . . . Harold Newel?”

  “No, I didn’t,” he replied honestly. “But I’m sure I knew him.”

  Vera’s head sank in her hands. “I don’t believe this. Okay, take my cell phone number because I won’t be in the office that much.” She took a business card from her purse then wrote on the back. “Call me if you get froggy again. As for now, get something to eat and stay off the streets.”

  “Whuut?” asked Rags, with a lump in his throat. “Why?”

  “For the same reason Newel’s name jumped off that gator’s back, reached up and slapped you. Sometimes you don’t know how or why but you do know.” Truth be told, Vera wasn’t sure what she knew, but it was clear that Rags had been a party to deeds best done in the dark. If there was useful information about Rags’s old buddy Harold Newel, that didn’t make his criminal jacket, Vera had to find it.

  After shooing her only client out of her truck, Vera called Glow during the short ride to her next destination. She tried to put into words how Rags’s paper gator pushed her in a direction she didn’t like traveling, toward the world of drug users and those who would do anything to keep illegal money flowing in. With mental notes swirling in her head, Vera found herself banging at a familiar door again. What she needed was a little more quality time, with Lucius.

  While standing on the front porch and waiting for an answer at the door, Vera gently fingered the origami alligator. It didn’t make sense to think that a man who’d create such delicate artwork could pump four holes in someone then leave them to bleed out in a cheap motel bathtub. But then again, there were still too many holes in a case that didn’t make any sense at all. By the time Vera heard footsteps from the other side of the door, she had decided it was worth digging to China if that meant freeing Rags from his nightmares and what she’
d determined was a tortured soul.

  “So, you gonna open up, Lucius, or just stand there looking through the peephole at me?” she asked, with too much on her mind to be wasting time.

  “What do you want now, Vera?” he answered, through the door. His tone was filled with a bitter measure of annoyance.

  “I’m sorry to bother you again but I really need you, Lucius. Please open up so we can talk about it.”

  Lucius’s eyes widened with surprise. He flicked the locks then whipped the door open in a flash. He was even more flabbergasted at Vera’s demeanor. She wore a faint smile. She actually smiled at whatever that was in the palms of her hands. A vulnerability Lucius didn’t know she possessed caused him to groan pitifully for her. “Ahh, are you okay?”

  Vera nodded her head, but not too convincingly. “Hey, Lucius,” was her stoic response. “Can’t you tell? I’m just peachy.”

  “Well, seeing as how you’ve never been this calm before, I’d have to disagree with you. Come on in and tell Lu-Lu all about it.”

  “Lu-Lu?” mouthed Vera, as a crease appeared in the middle of her brow. She’d snapped out of her daze to find Lucius adorned in an Indian squaw costume equipped with knee-high buckskin boots. The tight suede dress was too ridiculous for words although she did manage to compliment his Navaho headband with the decorative feather glued on the side of it. “The feather is a nice touch, Lucius. It really makes the outfit pop.”

  He blushed accordingly then stepped aside for Vera to enter. “You don’t think I overdid it? You know I do have the tendency to go overboard at times.”

  “Oh, no, you nailed this one.” Vera chuckled. “Believe me. I’m impressed.”

  “Thank you, do come in and sit a while. I was just about to dine.” Lucius served brunch, a gourmet-styled chicken and Belgian waffle dish with julienne potatoes on the side and mimosas to sip. He enjoyed Vera’s company, the news she shared about Harold Newel, the Lazy 8 Motel, and Rags claiming he remembered knowing the victim. Lucius listened attentively to every detail. Before Vera offered to clear the table of flatware, he’d grown very interested in how this episode in her life was panning out. Only it wasn’t merely a melodrama with bits and pieces of a make-believe puzzle to solve. A man’s life had been taken; if Rags was culpable in any way, Vera needed to know it. For Lucius, it was simply too juicy to watch from the sidelines. He wanted in.