Hit on the House

by Jon A. Jackson

  “Mul, don't go,” Lande pleaded. “I gotta talk to you. I gotta talk to somebody.”

  “I've got things to do,” Mulheisen said brusquely. “I've got a murder . . . Hell, I've got a dozen murder cases. And a couple of them have your little footprints all around them.”

  “Mine? I don't know what you're talking about,” Lande said, shaking his head. “Listen. Forget that shit. This is more important. I don't have nobody to talk to about this . . . I . . . and you're . . . well, you're my on'y frien’.”

  This was a sobering thought for Mulheisen. He looked down at Lande, with his bristly mustache and watery eyes. He had to fight an urge to laugh, to inform this absurd little creep once and for all that he wasn't his friend, . . . that he chose his own friends with great care and he would never, never, choose to be a friend to any little crack-brained schemer and . . . and . . . He bared his long teeth in the semblance of a smile. Then it became a real smile, and he clapped the man on the shoulder. “Later, Gene. Later. I really have to run.”

  * * *

  “Jim,” Mulheisen said, “I want a look at that shipment in Lande's back room.”

  “What makes you think it'd still be there?” Marshall wanted to know.

  “If it's just an ordinary shipment, it'll probably be gone,” Mulheisen said, “but if it's something illicit, I'm thinking that Lande will want to take care of it himself, and lately his hands have been full.”

  “Something illicit,” Marshall said. “Like money?”

  “Like a lot of money. Stashed in, say, computer terminals or whatchacallum . . .”

  “Drives? Stashed in the drives of computers?”

  “Well, they're just boxes aren't they? Plastic boxes that are pretty heavy anyway and not easily opened. I think it would be a rare customs agent who decided to pry open a lot of computers.”

  Jimmy nodded. “So what do we do? I hate to say this Mul, but no judge is going to give you a search warrant on that information. Do you want to just run out there and take a look, see if they're still in the back room?”

  “No. Miss Bommarito will certainly tell Lande, and it could scare him off. There's really not much to it, Jim. All I need is a quick look. The boxes are either there or they aren't. But listen, Jim, I'm the one who screwed this detail up. It's not your problem. Believe me, if you want to steer clear of this, just say so.”

  Marshall laughed. “Don't be silly, Mul. You know I'm with you. What do they say, ‘In for a dollar, in for a dime.’ What do you think? Is this a job for the telephone company or Detroit Edison?”

  Mulheisen considered. “Computer people are always nervous about their power supply, aren't they? Better make it Detroit Edison.”

  An hour and a half later a Detroit Edison van pulled into the parking lot at Nine Mile Plaza, home of Doc Byte and other fine businesses. Jimmy Marshall, in overalls, started at the first shop, inquiring about the report of a drop in line voltage, and he continued around the U even after he had been into the back room at Doc Byte. He was happy to report to Mulheisen that a full pallet of cartons was still there, all with shipping labels for Grand Cayman Island.

  “What do you think, Mul? Should we go back tonight and have a peek?”

  “What?” Mulheisen was shocked. “Certainly not. If we don't have sufficient grounds for a warrant, we have no business there. No, ... if it's what we think it is, . . . it'll sit. We ought to keep an eye on the place, though. It'd be too much to ask for a stakeout, but get the word out to the blue men and the cruisers and the detective staff—if anyone's in the neighborhood, just take a swing by there. Tell them to check the alley. They can call me anytime if anything's going on. I'll be spending a lot of time at Bon Secours, . . . which is where Lande will be, too.”

  “A lot of things are clear to me now, Mul,” Bonny said later that evening. She looked a little better, actually, a little more color in the face, a little stronger. Evidently she'd had a discussion with the doctor about chemotherapy, and Mulheisen suspected that she had learned all she needed to know about her chances. He sat by the bed, holding her hand. Every little once in a while she squeezed it.

  “Nothing is worth anything but love,” she said. “I know it sounds trite, but I can't find any other words. There's a lot to say—too much—but no way to say it. The pain . . . it makes it hard to focus at times, but I have things to say.”

  “Don't worry about it,” Mulheisen said.

  “This is not a worry, Mul—it's important.” She stared into his face for a long moment, and then she smiled. “Well, you know what I'm talking about. You always knew, I guess.”

  Mulheisen had no idea what she was talking about.

  “I'm worried about Gene. He doesn't have anyone but me, and I'm . . .”

  “Hush,” Mulheisen said.

  “No, I won't hush. It's all right. I can deal with it, . . . though it makes me so sad.” Her eyes glittered. “I would have thought I'd have longer. It's so . . . disappointing. What an inadequate word,” she said, as if to herself. “But Gene, . . . who will look after Gene? He's so stupid sometimes.”

  Warily Mulheisen remarked, “He's only a man.”

  “Oh, don't be so sensitive,” Bonny said. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have jumped on you about that. I don't think you're stupid, not really . . . well, not like most men, anyway. Oh, now I've done it again.”

  She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. Her lips were dry as paper. Mulheisen let her do it, even helped her, but he couldn't help wondering where Lande was.

  “Gene's gone out to get something to eat,” she said. She released his hand and resumed the conversation with “Well, he is stupid, at times. And he's in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “I don't know exactly. I'm not sure I should tell you if I knew. He sure wouldn't want me to.”

  “Gene is a big boy,” Mulheisen said; “he can take care of himself.”

  “Most of the time,” she agreed. “But this time . . . he's in something deep. It has something to do with Sid, of course.”

  “So, he did know Sid,” Mulheisen said.

  Bonny made a feint at shrugging, but it must have hurt. After a moment she said, “Not all that well . . . not that I ever knew about. But I think he had some kind of deal with Sid.”

  “What kind of deal, Bonny?”

  “Sid was going to bankroll a golf resort, in the islands, and Gene was to be a partner. Gene was setting it up. Well, that was the deal, as far as I knew. It was all legit, above board. Except there was something else to it, and that's what I don't know. If I'd known, I could have . . .”

  “What? Oh, you mean you wouldn't have thought it had something to do with Germaine Kouras.”

  “Well, that, of course. I don't know why I was so blind. I ought to have known that Gene wasn't the kind of guy to fool around. It was just jealousy. I heard that voice, . . . and she was so secretive, so . . . well, she sounded like one of those women. I feel so foolish, Mul. But when you told me that she'd gone and that she was involved in some scam . . . I mean, I knew right away that my early suspicions were just . . . foolish. But, if I'd known that Gene's deal with Sid was . . . well, complicated, I could have helped.”

  Mulheisen couldn't figure this out. “How could you have helped, Bonny?”

  “Well, I knew Sid. For years. Sid was always very . . . what would you say?” she frowned, trying to think of a word. “Flirty. Friendly, but always on the make. I don't know if Sid ever talked to a woman, other than his mother or his daughter, who he wasn't at least casually trying to make it with. He liked me. We . . . we had a little thing, years ago.”

  Oh, dear, Mulheisen thought. “Did Gene know about this?”

  “I suppose so.” She closed her eyes for a long moment. “It wasn't anything. It was over long before I met Gene. It wouldn't have bothered him.”

  “Is that where Gene went that night, the night Sid was hit?”

  Bonny's eyes closed again. She looked tired now, but patient. “Mul, pl
ease don't think that Gene was concerned about something that went on between me and Sid, that ended before we even met . . . not that it was ever anything much anyway. But, yes, I think it was Germaine who called him that afternoon and’ shortly afterward Gene went out, I guess on business, probably with Sid.” She looked at him wearily, as if to say, Are you satisfied, stupid?

  “Not to get rosemary, then?”

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “as he was going out the door, he asked, ‘Need anything from the store?’ And I said, ‘Rosemary.’ “

  Mulheisen sat there for a long time, watching her rest. A nurse came by to give her some medication. Lande still didn't return. Mulheisen held Bonny's hand. They didn't talk much, but at one point she said, “Isn't it odd that I should be in love with two such different men? You and Gene? Once upon a time I would have refused to believe it was possible to love two men at once.”

  Mulheisen felt torn by this little confession. One part of him rejoiced to think that Bonny loved him, but to be linked in such an intimate way with Gene Lande . . . !

  “But it's a lucky thing,” she went on, “now that I'm . . .” She gestured helplessly at her body.

  Mulheisen was puzzled and his face betrayed it.

  “Oh, I know I've already asked too much of you,” Bonny said, “and you've been so good to us, but I have to ask you to help. If I were able, if I were healthy, I'd just go to Carmine . . .”

  “Carmine! Don't tell me you and Carmine—”

  “Well, of course,” Bonny said; “I've known Carmine for years. We never had any great relationship, but . . . I know what he likes. He likes to be stroked. Naturally, you have to be prepared to go all the way if you start stroking him, but it wouldn't come to that. I don't think. Anyway, that's out of the question now.”

  Mulheisen stared at this woman wonderingly. He thought he had known something about her. Clearly he knew nothing. She lay there dying but plotting how to save her goofy husband. He didn't think he could put anything past her.

  Bonny opened her eyes. “I'd kill for Gene if I could, if it would help. You have to help me, Mul.” The eyes fell shut, then flicked open almost immediately. “Don't take him away from me, Mul.”

  “I'm not taking him away, Bonny,” he protested. “I have to question him, but—”

  “No. He stays with me. Promise me.” She was tense, trying to sit up in the bed, and he was alarmed for her, but she resisted his attempts to calm her, fixing him with her eyes.

  “I . . . ah . . .” He spread his hands helplessly. Then he sighed and nodded. “Yeah. All right. I promise.”

  Bonny relaxed and smiled. “I knew you would help, Mul. You love me. I love you . . . and Gene.”

  “But, Bonny, you have to help me, too. I can't do this in the dark. You've got to find out what he was up to.”

  “Don't worry,” she said, calming him, patting his hand. “I'll take care of this. Relax. You worry too much, Mul. You have to take better care of yourself. Anyway, I already saw Carmine. He wouldn't tell me what it was all about, but I got him to promise to leave Gene out of it.”

  “What? When did you do this?” Mulheisen was amazed.

  “Oh, a while back. I just called him up and went in to see him. I told him all Gene had going with Sid was the golf resort. He bought it. He even kissed me—a friendly kiss—as I left.”

  Mulheisen stared at her. She had drifted off. He wasn't sure what to make of this last statement. Had she just dreamed it? Was it something that had happened years ago?

  Not long after Lande returned, sucking his teeth and saying with false cheer, “Hey, babe! I'm back. Shift break! Oops, she asleep?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Thanks for lookin’ after my girl, Mul! Ain't she great? She looks great, don't she?”

  Sixteen

  At nine-thirty in the morning a long, deep-brown Cadillac rolled sedately down a side street on Detroit's East Side. It had tinted windows so that gawkers couldn't look inside, and it cruised so carefully because there were cars parked on both sides of the street, leaving only a single lane for traffic. It wasn't a very nice neighborhood, although it had once been respectable. The houses were large, four-plexes, some of them substantial brick homes with large porches upstairs and down. But now they were in poor repair, the miniature yards stamped bare of grass, the wrought iron fences bent or flattened, gates hanging awry if not absent, and plywood nailed over many of the large window frames.

  About midway down this block, which was nearly an eighth of a mile long, there was a factory where potato chips and allied products were made. This wasn't unusual; there are many such industrial enclaves in Detroit, left over from an earlier period, when zoning laws didn't always keep pace with the city's development. The original factory had been built in the twenties, when this was still an outskirt of the city, and then the housing had flooded in around it. That factory had made machine tools. Krispee Chips was a fairly modern plant, having replaced the original structure with a long, low building whose construction had necessitated the destruction of some of the surrounding houses. The Krispee Chips Company had purchased several of the houses on either side and refurbished them, so that they now stood in marked contrast to their neighbors, and fenced in the whole complex with a high cyclone fence that had angled barriers on the top with strands of barbed wire. The houses were ostensibly used for additional office space, but the neighbors knew that there were also many people living there, mostly young men who spoke a foreign language and liked to kick a soccer ball around the little recreation yard.

  The front gate to the complex was manned by uniformed guards who wore side arms, and you could see shotguns in a rack inside the little gatehouse. This morning the guard waved the deep-brown limousine through with a kind of salute, and it pulled up by the canopied side door of the factory offices. A burly man hopped out on the passenger side and opened the back door. A small, slender man got out and walked briskly through a door that was held open for him by another armed guard. He passed through the carpeted outer offices, with their array of pastel-colored desks and video-display terminals, at each one of which sat a pretty young woman. He greeted some of the women by name and with a smile and a wave of his hand, and each one smiled gaily back and called him boss. At his secretary's office he stopped briefly to say, “Get me Mitch in New York.” Then he disappeared through the door and into his inner sanctum.

  This was a large office with thick carpeting and a half dozen very colorful and dramatic paintings on the walls. There was a striking man-size metal sculpture in one corner, of a ratlike creature wearing a fedora and a loose suit jacket, beneath which was slung a double-barreled shotgun. The rat-man had an eerie grin, at once lewd, humorous, and malicious. The boss smiled involuntarily when he saw it. But then his smile faded, and he snatched up the warbling telephone and settled himself primly in a large teak and fabric chair behind the enormous desk.

  “Mitch? Carmine. I'm getting nowhere. Yes? I had a man on it, but evidently he didn't find out anything.” Silence. Then, “Joe Service. Yeah, I know he's supposed to be good, but he wasn't good this time. So I need a few guys. As many as you think we'll need. We're going to just have to go out and beat the bushes.” A dry laugh. “Let me know how many you can send and how we'll meet. Talk to you.”

  He hung up and punched a button. “Candy, doll, get me Fat.” He puttered about the desk for a minute and then snatched up the telephone when it warbled.

  “Fat? Did you take care of what's his name, Service? He did, eh? Well that's too bad. He knows how these things . . . Fat, don't take his part . . . He knows . . . He has to learn. Sure, he's good, they're all good . . . until they don't deliver. You don't deliver, you don't collect, Fat. No more screwups. This whole thing is one long screwup. I won't have it. No, no, no, listen to me. Let the bastard bitch. He's made plenty off me. Once in awhile he has to take the dirty end of the stick.” He paused, listened for a long moment, then said, “No. He's a wise ass. I put up with it in the past because he got the jo
b done and he was amusing, but after a while, Fat, you get tired of his snotty remarks. If he won't listen to reason, then . . .” There was a pregnant pause, and he continued. “That's right, Fat. Nobody lives forever. All right, that's settled. Now listen—I've just been talking to Mitch. He's sending over some heat. It's time to quit playing patty-cake. Maybe one or two of them can take care of Mr. Service while they're at it. I'll let you know when I hear from Mitch.”

  He replaced the receiver and sat at his desk for a long moment, looking about him. He caught the metallic eye of the rat-man, aimed right at him. He wondered how the sculptor had done that. The eyes were so weird. There was no eye there, really, just built-up ridges with a hole in the center, but they seemed to glow, sometimes red, sometimes yellow. It was something that came of burning the metal, he supposed. He liked the pin-striped pants and the narrow shoes and, especially, the writhing tail and the way the rat-man held the shotgun out, almost shyly, as if offering you a little death.

  Carmine smiled at the sculpture and stood up. He smoothed his silk suit jacket and pants, then looked at his small, soft hands, excellently manicured. They weren't in the least soiled, but he felt a vague need to wash them. He walked across the office and opened the door to his luxurious bath and lavatory and stopped cold.

  Joe Service was sitting on Carmine's expensive Swedish commode, fully dressed, pointing a revolver that had a large, ugly protuberance on the barrel.

  Carmine started to slam the door, but Joe was there like a panther, his hand holding the door open. “Come on in, Carmine,” he said, gesturing with the pistol. He closed the door behind them. The room was large with a carpeted floor and a tiled alcove that the putative bather approached via three polished teak steps that led to a teak deck in which was sunk a seven-foot-long oval tub that was made out of some kind of marblelike black substance with gold veins running through it. The bath and shower fixtures were gold, too, or looked like gold, and there was a switch for a device that jetted water into the tub through hidden ports. There was a shower head but no curtain or screen to prevent water from splashing all over. Joe had spent some time that morning trying to figure out just how it worked, but he'd given up.