Dying Embers

by Robert E. Bailey

  Luis told the woman to shut up while he made an astonished face and counted his fingers.

  “I gotta do my set,” she said.

  “You’re with me. Somebody will fill in,” said Luis.

  “They’ll get my tips.”

  Luis handed some bills under the desk. He looked up. His face red, but his voice calm, he said, “Who the fuck are you?”

  I sorted the Astra out of the wreckage of the drawer with the splintered end of the cane and covered it with my business card. Luis reached—slowly and gingerly—took the card with two fingers and rocked back in his chair.

  “Arthur Hardin,” he said. “Peter A. Ladin Investigative Associates.” He smiled. “You don’t mind if I keep this?”

  “No,” I said. “You might want to give me a call—maybe come and pay me a visit.”

  A woman’s hand crept from under the desk to gather currency within reach. I nudged bills closer with my foot.

  Luis mugged his face with his hand. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “You offered to do some business. I came to talk about it.”

  He shook his head and shrugged.

  “Scott Lambert,” I said. “He’s in the county jail. Your guys beat the shit out of him—said he had to front the Chingos twenty grand or they’d make it a double header.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who are these—what you say—Chingos?”

  “That’s what I wanted to know,” I said. “So I asked around. On the street. And everybody says the Chingos are punks.”

  “I don’t know from Chingos,” said Luis, his knuckles white, hands gripping the arms of his chair.

  “Take Rudy, for instance,” I said. “Got Chingo written all over him and lying in a pile here. I mean, things don’t look good. I don’t know if the Chingos got the horsepower to deliver or not. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Well, they tuned up the guy you told me about.” Luis made a sympathetic face. “Maybe,” he said, and waved a beggar’s open palm at me. “And this is just advice, one businessman to another. Maybe, you should pay these guys.” He shrugged, “Y’know. Whoever they are.”

  “No, they tune him up again, the Chingos don’t get paid.”

  “Maybe this guy you told me about don’t like that arrangement.”

  “Don’t matter. He gets any more lumps, he’s taking a plea. The goose with the golden eggs is doing twenty-five to life and ain’t got cigarette change, much less twenty grand a week.”

  Luis slipped off his glasses and bit on the end of one of the legs. He made narrow eyes and then chopped the leg at me. “I guess you know if he has a deal tomorrow. I don’t know these guys, but I think they’re looking to get paid if they deliver.”

  “Tomorrow, if we got a deal,” I said. He should have chided me not to miss a payment. He didn’t.

  He slipped the glasses back on, and said, “Now I got a question.”

  “Sure.”

  “How did you think you’d get out of here?”

  I picked up the Astra. Rudy made a shaky attempt to rise and I broke what was left of my cane across the top of his head and told him, “Goodnight, Rudy.”

  “Punks or not,” said Luis, “that ain’t going to get you out of here.”

  I popped the magazine out of the Astra, thumbed a .25 caliber rimfire out on the desk, and hauled the Detonics off my hip. Dropping the tiny round down the .45 caliber barrel of my Detonics, I held the pistol next to my ear and rattled it.

  “Right you are,” I said. “Too small for a big job.” I whipped the muzzle at Luis. The .25 caliber bullet bopped him on the forehead and fell into his lap.

  “I got two plans,” I said. Plan Number One is I shove this hog leg up your ass and high-step you down the stairwell while you tell everybody everything is cool. Or—Plan Number Two—you finish your business with your lady friend and I swill my beer while I walk out of here.” I drew a bead on his nose, thumbed the hammer, and asked, “How about it, Luis? You a little crazy or a lot stupid?”

  Luis nodded, and made the evil eyes of a patient man. He looked under the desk and said, “C’mon honey, you got a lot of money to earn.”

  • • •

  Billy had a car phone. I called Wendy collect. “Got a ride, Hon,” I said. “You don’t have to pick me up.”

  “I called,” said Wendy.

  “I know.”

  “You know? Why didn’t you pick up the phone?”

  “I was in the middle of something.”

  “Something more important than me?”

  “Nothing is more important than you,” I said. “The telephone was in the drawer, and I had scooter thug sitting in my window.”

  “Flowers,” she said, “or you don’t get to see the tape.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “Dunphy met with two guys. I didn’t recognize either one. One of them, a blond guy, seemed to be calling the shots. Dunphy gave the other guy a white plastic bag.”

  “Blond guy?” I said. “You can do better than that.” I looked in the mirror. The black Chevy Blazer hung two cars back.

  “He had big blue eyes and tight buns,” said Wendy.

  “You can show me the tape when I get home,” I said. “I’m headed for the office to check for messages and see if Lorna has left her reports. I don’t think I’ll be late.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” said Wendy.

  “Things happen.”

  “Don’t let any bad things happen,” she said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, and hung up. I wiped my eye with the heel of my hand. There seemed to be a vacuum in my chest I couldn’t fill with air. Guess I should have had more for lunch than the wedge of lime.

  The Blazer made the turn onto Lake Drive with me. I turned right into a bowling alley parking lot, scooted behind the building, and parked the Jag behind a dumpster. When the Blazer pulled up I was already out of the car, leaning on the door with my arms folded to conceal the fact that I had my pistol in my hand.

  The passenger window of the Blazer buzzed down and Matty Svenson’s voice said, “Nice ride.”

  “A little flashy for street work,” I said.

  “Who’s Tracy Ayers?”

  “The lady who sold the car to Billy Clements. Billy lent me the car until mine is out of the shop. Title transfer probably isn’t on the teletype yet.”

  Matty stepped out wearing a trace of lipstick and her blond hair tied in a knot at the back of her head. A Kevlar vest flattened her figure under a black-hooded sweatshirt. She wore matching black sweatpants and a nylon windbreaker.

  “You can park the heat, Colonel. What’s up?”

  I slipped the weapon back on my hip. “I need some flash money. Needs to look like about twenty grand.”

  “Your client was going to provide that,” she said, and produced a red pack of cigarettes. She shook one loose and held the pack out to me.

  “He’s in the house-of-many-slamming-doors and his second in command, Hank Dunphy, came up lame.” I took the cigarette and drilled it into the corner of my mouth. “Dunphy said he wasn’t picking up my invoices and the plan to make me Security Director was in the toilet.”

  “Communication problem?”

  “Way more than that,” I said. “One of Wendy’s people shot some film of him meeting with two guys and handing over a package.”

  “Refresh my memory,” said Matty. “Who is Dunphy?” She bit a smoke out of the pack and put the pack away.

  “Hank Dunphy, the plant manager at Light and Energy Applications in Ada.”

  She lit her smoke. “Who’d he make the meet with?”

  “Don’t know yet, gotta see the film. If I were you, I’d police him up.” I beckoned with a finger and Matty handed me her cigarette. While I used the hot end to kindle mine, I said, “You need to ask him the hard questions before he has one of those fatal accidents that have been going around.”

  Matty took her cigarette back and took a hungry toke. She savor
ed the smoke and looked thoughtful. When she exhaled she said, “If you were me, you’d need probable cause.”

  I shrugged. “So just lean on him a little.”

  “I have to talk to my supervisor,” said Matty. “Since the shit hit the fan at your office I need permission to take my clothes to the dry cleaner. I don’t get to hang around taverns.”

  “Strictly business.”

  Matty laughed and tossed her head.

  “My client is an innocent man. I’m trying to keep him healthy. The Rabbit belongs to the Chingos, some guy named Luis—I don’t have a last name but his street name is Poco Loco. Chingos beat Lambert—”

  “I know the story,” said Matty. She flicked the ashes off her cigarette.

  “You know he’s not guilty,” I said. “I need the flash money.”

  Matty folded her arms, which brushed open her jacket. She had her Baretta in a black canvas hip rig. “I’ll ask, but I don’t see it.”

  “Put Lambert in protective custody. Feed him some pizza in a cheap hotel.”

  Matty shook her head. “State case, and the prosecutor is already asking too many questions. Getting you loose cost favors that could get me assigned to screening packages in the mailroom.”

  “What the hell did you tell him?”

  “I told him that if he turned you loose, your life span probably wouldn’t exceed the statute of limitations.”

  “Funny.”

  “Wasn’t a joke,” said Matty. “He didn’t laugh.”

  “I need something done about the pornography charges.”

  “Cameran gave up his license and he’s out of the club. The postal inspector was fired for cause.”

  “Something public,” I said. “My wife is a detective. People lie to her. It’s hard for her to believe your explanation since you won’t testify to the story for the licensing board.”

  “Policy, Art,” she said, “You know I can’t do that. I could get fired for what I told her.”

  “Not good enough. My kids are going through hell at school and my youngest son decked some county social worker.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said, looking me straight in the eye. “Just the same, this is hardball. You want to play softball, get a job as an insurance adjuster. If you need a marriage counselor, you don’t get off by laying that problem at my door. You got yourself into this case long before I got involved.”

  “Hardball?” I said, I could feel the blood rush to my face and pound in my ears. “I got your hardball…” In extra innings, I was going to say, but Matty raised her hands in surrender.

  She said nothing but made a small round hole of her mouth and blew a narrow stream of smoke while she looked at her shoes. When she looked up she said, “We’ll do better. I don’t know what yet.”

  “And if I get waxed you’ll send flowers.”

  “Not officially,” she said, and laid a discerning gaze on what remained of her cigarette. Her nails, usually pointed and polished, were clipped as short as mine and devoid of even a clear lacquer. She took a final drag and ground the butt out with her running shoe. “There’s two more,” she said without looking up.

  “Two more what?”

  “Two more guys—we know who they are. Cameran gave them up.”

  “Bring ‘em in.”

  “They’re off the farm,” she said. “That’s the problem with rented loyalties.” She climbed back into the Blazer. Through the still open window she said, “They’ll come for you. Let us take them.” The window went up and the Blazer pulled out.

  I threw what was left of my cigarette after the Blazer and yelled, “Be my guest!”

  • • •

  The Blazer followed me back to the office. The two ladies in the blue mini-van pulled out of the lot as I parked the Jag. In the office I found that Marg had left for the day.

  Lorna Kemp sat perched on the edge of Marg’s desk like a kid on a swing and looked very pleased with herself. She wore a white shell and tan slacks, both decorated with random black smudges. She said, “The records were in the basement of the volunteer fire station,” and handed me a fat sheaf of papers.

  “The short version,” I said.

  “Shelly Frampton died fifty-seven years ago,” she said.

  “Not possible.”

  Lorna waggled a finger. “Top sheet,” she said.

  It was a death certificate. Shelly Frampton, aged thirty-one months, had perished in an automobile accident. “Different Shelly Frampton,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Lorna, “and that’s before children were routinely assigned Social Security numbers. So I went to county birth records to verify the parents. I found out I had the right Shelly and that she was a twin.”

  “She had a sister?”

  “Brother,” said Lorna. “Look at the arrest report for the day we were down there.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said. The name of the person on the arrest report was Sheldon Frampton. “I never would have guessed.”

  “A lot of people were fooled,” said Lorna. “Including Sheldon, until he was sixteen.”

  Whatever was on my face made Lorna laugh.

  “No, really,” she said. “The doctor on the death certificate, Lionel Jaymuny—I found him.”

  “Christ, he’d have to be ninety.”

  “Ninety-one. He’s in the Methodist home. He told me the story—I mean sort of—between catnaps.”

  “How the hell did you do that?”

  “He’s a registered voter.”

  I flopped on the sofa, looked at my burned foot—it was filthy—and dropped the papers in my lap. “So, tell me the story.”

  “Once upon a time, before seats belts, kiddie chairs, and airbags, a family pick-up truck slid off an icy road and hit a pole. Father was killed. Shelly was in her mother’s lap and crushed against the dash. Sheldon had been standing on the seat and went through the windshield. His larynx was crushed and he was cut up, including his private parts. Mother survived, but needed chemicals to deal with the fact that the little girl died in her lap.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “How bad was it?”

  Lorna bent her head down and rounded her shoulders. She stuck her hand out and shook it feebly as if it rested on the top of a cane. In an old man’s voice she said, “That’s none of your business, Missy. You just need to know that we done right by that youngster. Don’t matter what happened. It was the best thing we could do.”

  “They raised Sheldon as Shelly?”

  Lorna straightened up and shrugged. “Mother did. Home schooled and loaded with hormones. When Sheldon was sixteen, his mother took a bath with an electric hairdryer. Sheldon was made a ward of the court and found out that what was in his pants was kind of hit and miss.”

  “Oh, God,” I said and started working my pockets looking for a smoke. I didn’t find any. Lorna said she was fresh out.

  “From that point Sheldon was Sheldon. He finished high school at a state facility and when he was eighteen he found out that he was a rich man. He went to MSU and got a degree in veterinary science, but wasn’t much of a party animal. He got arrested for assaulting a prostitute and was voluntarily committed.

  “In two years Sheldon was Shelly again and amiable enough as long as she took the prescribed medication. Shelly went back to MSU as an assistant professor and kind of a celebrity, active in the gay community. Shelly and Anne Jones met and hit it off.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “Shelly was still hitting the day we met her.”

  “Anne tried to drop the charges but the complaining witness was the sheriff’s deputy. The papers you’ve got there indicate that Sheldon pled ‘no contest,’ paid a fine, and was sentenced to an anger management program.”

  “All right,” I said, “what we need here is for you to put Anne and Shelly together at the penthouse restaurant in the Amway Grand the night that Anne was murdered. They’ll remember because Anne got in a row with Scott Lambert that night. Maybe there’s a security video. Lambert was escorted out
of the building.”

  “I need to go home and clean up,” said Lorna. “Tomorrow all right?”

  “Sure, and there’s a couple more things. I need the low-down on the houseman at the Frampton estate, and call Leonard Jones and tell him he can help by having his lawyer file whatever is necessary to stop the sale of Anne’s sculpture, The Dutchman. Tell him it’s in the main house of the Frampton estate—in the parlor—on the mantel, over the fireplace.”

  “I need an expense check,” said Lorna.

  She took the thirty-nine dollars I had in my pocket and left. I yelled for her to buy some cigarettes as she was going out the door. She laughed and said she already had some.

  I locked up. Outside I found the sky clear and the air cool. I left the top up and started the Jag with the first key out of my pocket—the one with the green tab. I had half a tank of “petrol,” a good thing considering the fact that Lorna swung with all my cash.

  A mile down Forty-fourth Street a Kentwood police cruiser cut me off. I slid off the shoulder trying not to bend Billy’s ride. Detective Van Huis bailed out of the passenger door of the cruiser with a snubby .38 in his hand. In the rearview mirror a dark brown plain wrapper slid to a stop, blocking the back of the Jag. Detective Flynt exploded out the driver’s door with a fat nine in his hand.

  Someone yelled, “Throw the keys out the window!”

  I stuck my hands out the window and dropped the key.

  “Are there any firearms in the vehicle?”

  “Got one on my hip,” I said.

  “Get out of the car and lay on the ground.”

  I yelled, “Not happening! I just got this suit out of the dry cleaner, and you guys know damn good and well who I am.”

  On the far side of the cruiser someone racked a shotgun just as Matty pulled up in the black Blazer. The passenger door of the Jag opened and a man in a gray permanent-wrinkle suit crouched around the edge of the door opening and pointed a Glock .40 caliber pistol at me. “You’re under arrest for carrying a concealed weapon,” he said.

  “I have a permit in my pocket,” I said. “May I get it out?” He nodded and I gave him the DA 2818. He looked at it and made a face like a cat considering a hamster in a plastic ball.