Dying Embers

by Robert E. Bailey

  I don’t know what it cost. It needed another line—I sat in the car with my pen poised to strike. Nothing came to mind. I turned on the radio to find inspiration from some minstrel but got the news instead.

  Lead story: A gas explosion destroyed a home in Ada. A woman was dead, a little girl in intensive care. Names withheld. Then sports, weather, and a little humor to wrap up: Two members of a local motorcycle club had been arrested after getting liquored up and dumping a trash receptacle into the lap of the desk sergeant at the Grand Rapids Police Department.

  I stashed the card in the breast pocket of my jacket and drove back to the office. A man in a blue serge suit sat on my sofa and passed the breeze with Marg. As I opened the door he waved. His forehead lasted all the way to the crown of his head. The rest of his brown hair lay brushed back from his face along the sides of his head and formed fender skirts over his ears.

  “I didn’t know if I should wait,” the man said in Ken Ayers’s voice.

  “Harley Davidson on the big board now?” I said.

  Ken climbed off the sofa trenching his shirt collar with a finger. “Yeah. Maybe. Hell, I don’t know.”

  “I know,” said Marg, “and I’m not telling either one of you.”

  Ken followed me into my office and took the wingback chair. I opened the closet and unzipped the bag that Matty had given me.

  “You missed all the fun,” said Ken.

  “Had all the fun I could stand this morning,” I said and liberated a packet of Franklins.

  Marg stepped into the doorway and pointed at the wall behind my desk. The agency license was back in the frame and covering the unfaded paint square that had marked its absence.

  “That cop that was here when Billy Clements came by to lend you his car?” said Ken.

  “Archer Flynt,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Ken. “He walked in and flopped that piece of paper on Marg’s desk.”

  “I told him that wasn’t where he found it,” said Marg.

  “Man, you shoulda seen his puss,” said Ken. “Marg reached in her drawer and gave him the frame. You woulda thought she fixed him a shit sandwich.”

  “Sorry I missed it,” I said.

  “Wait,” Ken waved a hand and laughed. “He comes in, bangs it up on the wall, and turns around—Marg is standing in the doorway and makes him hang it straight.”

  Marg aimed a finger at me and said, “And you make sure it stays there.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. Marg went back to her desk. I dropped the bundle of currency in Ken’s lap on the way to my chair. Ken riffled the end pack of Franklins under a tent of approving eyebrows. I rocked my chair back and stacked my heels on the corner of my desktop.

  Ken stuffed the fifty yards into the breast pocket of his suit coat and said, “What’s the plan, boss?”

  I let my head fall to one side and passed my hand over the top of my head.

  “A weave, man,” said Ken. “I sent it out to be dry cleaned.”

  “I was afraid you went Wall Street on me.”

  “This is what I wear to court.”

  I folded my hands on my chest, fingers interlaced, and said, “Heard any gossip lately?”

  “Friends of mine had lunch with your client,” said Ken.

  “Gourmet?”

  “Fried bologna and macaroni with a breath of cheese sauce.”

  “I know that place,” I said. “I was there yesterday but they canceled my reservation.”

  “Heard you had lunch at The Rabbit.”

  “Earthy ambiance, but I’d hardly call a wedge of lime lunch.”

  “I heard somebody was serving hickory,” said Ken.

  “Special order,” I said. “How was my client when your friends talked to him?”

  “Scared shitless when they sat next to him,” said Ken. He laughed. “But they said your client found a bunk and had a quiet night.”

  “Fancy that.”

  “Ain’t nobody going to have a quiet night if we don’t take care of business,” said Ken.

  I put my feet on the floor, hauled a can of oil out of my desk drawer, and lubed the rails of my lead launcher. “Guess we ought to go for a ride,” I said.

  • • •

  The revolving sign atop The Rabbit was already lit—turning relentlessly in the evening twilight like a radar antenna, searching for customers long on libido and short on prospects.

  “You got to be shittin’ me,” said Ken.

  “Nope,” I said. “That’s where we’re going.”

  “I can’t think of anything Luis would like better than a big chunk of your ass.”

  “How about a big chunk of my ass and twenty thousand dollars?”

  “Well?” said Ken with a twist of his head. “Yeah.”

  I pulled up to the curb two blocks short of The Rabbit and dug the matchbook out of my pocket. On Billy Clements’s car phone I dialed the “private party” number.

  Half a dozen rings and the bartender answered. “Rabbit,” he yelled into my ear. The din of the crowd and a quarter’s worth of “Smoke on the Water” nearly drowned him out.

  “I’m looking for a private party,” I yelled back into the telephone.

  A smile usurped the doubt from Ken’s face. He said, “Much better idea.”

  “Hang on a sec,” said the bartender. I heard a clunk, he must have set the handset on the bar. Halfway through “Magic Carpet Ride” Luis interrupted Steppenwolf.

  “Private party starts at a thousand dollars,” he said.

  “Art Hardin,” I said.

  Ken did a double take.

  “Fuck you want, asshole?” said Luis.

  “Thought I’d stop by for a beer.”

  “Stop by any time you want, man. Your friend Rudy’s here. He was just sayin’ how much he’d like to see you. Maybe buy you a beer. Shoot the shit.”

  “Scott Lambert got a good night’s sleep.”

  “What’s it to me?” Luis said.

  “Twenty thousand dollars,” I said. “Thought I’d just bring it by.”

  Ken searched the glove box and worried his gaze around the car. I nodded at the “Buck-a-Piece” bag on the package shelf.

  “Just a minute,” said Luis. The telephone clicked onto hold and I got salsa music while Ken snatched the bag into the front seat.

  Luis picked up the line. The background noise was gone. “You can bring me all the money you want, but if you got business with somebody maybe you better do that first.”

  “Just seems like a waste of time,” I said.

  “You forget where you supposed to go?”

  “Hampton Street?” I said. “The tunnel under the expressway.”

  “Maybe it was Milwaukee Street,” he said. “Maybe there’s a secret handshake you got to remember.”

  “Nah. Detroit Red Wings T-shirt and hat.”

  Ken pulled the rubber mallet out of the bag and looked at me with his face screwed into a question mark. I nodded. He dropped the mallet on the floor and plumbed his hand through the contents of the bag.

  “Well? See! You got it figured, man. Go and do your business, and ah—come by here, and ah. … Rudy have a nice cold beer waiting for you.”

  “Corona with a wedge of lime,” I said.

  Luis banged the phone in my ear.

  I started the Jag, pulled into traffic, and took the first right. At the alley I turned left. Most of a block down I found an empty cement slab behind a plumbing shop and backed in.

  I had an excellent view of The Rabbit—the brightly lit parking lot as well as the side and back doors.

  “There ain’t no money in here,” Ken said into the bag.

  “Let me see it,” I said.

  Ken shrugged and handed the bag to me with concern hung from his eyebrows like a curtain.

  I looked into the bag and then stuck my hand in to search around. The tape, the hat, the shirt, and the bumper sticker were all there.

  “Ain’t this a bitch,” I said. “I must have told the dumb bas
tard a fib.”

  26

  MATTY, IN HER PLAIN SEDAN—followed by a blacked-out Suburban—bucked and lurched down the rutted alley past Ken and me while we were still parked behind the plumbing shop. Ken allowed as how he thought they were the police. I let him lecture me on the subtleties of identifying unmarked police vehicles. Half a cigar later Rudy—leaning on a cane and wearing a hip-to-ankle air cast—along with the bartender, the car valet, and a couple of guys I’d not seen before, departed in a couple of cherried-out mid-sixties Chevys that climbed up off the ground like camels departing on a caravan.

  I backed the Jag up to the delivery door of The Rabbit and we walked around to the side door. A dancer in a sequined G-string and a cocktail length white rabbit fur coat worked the door, a tall black dancer with a Nigerian hairdo and dangling gold lightning-bolt earrings stood behind the bar, and the Bee Gees were “Stayin’ Alive.” Luis leaned on the bar. When he saw us, he closed his eyes and turned his head away.

  “The haps, Luis?” I said. The odor of hops and cigarette smoke hung in the air. On the stage a very nearly flat-chested blond—wearing a Dale Evans hat and white leather chaps over Hanes Her Way—rowed her hands in rhythm to her thrusting hips, riding an imagined pony through knee deep, dry ice fog.

  “Fuck you doing here, man?”

  “My car broke down a couple of blocks over,” I said. “I figured, you know? I’m here. I give you the bag.”

  Luis bent his head down and rubbed his forehead. When he looked up he said, “Who the fuck is this?”

  Ken folded his hands in front of him and squared his shoulders.

  “An associate,” I said. “I got your bag here. This is a tough town, you know—a half-dozen guys beat the shit out of you and then demand a lot of money so it don’t happen again.”

  “He’s a cop,” said Luis.

  Ken curled a lip and narrowed one eye.

  “You’re going to hurt his feelings,” I said.

  “Mimi,” Luis called out to a brunette with dark eyes and flowing hair hawking lap dances. She looked up from the customer she was leaning over. Luis nodded at Ken.

  Braless under a baby doll top with a G-string and fishnet stockings, Mimi walked up to Ken, threw her arms around him under his suit coat, and writhed her body against his. She turned her face up to his and said, “I got the lap dance if you got time, Sugar.”

  Ken smiled down at her and said, “Later, doll. I’ll be sure to ask for you.”

  Mimi ran her hand over Ken’s backside as she walked away. She looked at Luis and shook her head.

  Luis said, “Fine. Too bad about your car.” He looked at the bartender. “Give these guys a Corona with a wedge of lime.”

  “Panther piss,” said Ken. “Gimme a Bud.”

  “Whatever,” said Luis. “I’ll call you a cab.”

  I held the bag out to him. “Shit, just take this. You delivered.”

  Luis backed up and showed me his empty palms. “I don’t know what you got in that bag. I don’t have anything to do with what you got in that bag. You got to go somewhere, take a cab.”

  “They keep records. The drivers have a log. Something—God forbid—goes wrong, the cops will be all over you.”

  “A lot of people who come here take a cab home,” said Luis. “They have some trouble, it’s nothing to me, man.”

  “The cops are looking at me hard,” I said. “Say they find me and some of your associates end up in the emergency room.”

  “Look, everything is cool, man,” said Luis. “I understand you got some doubts. It’s cool. No sweat, man. You’ll see.”

  The bartender delivered the longnecks. I laid the bag on the bar.

  “This belongs to your boss,” I said.

  The bartender reached for the bag. Luis grabbed the bag and shoved it at me. I took it.

  “I’ll give you a ride,” said Luis.

  “You sure, man?” I said. “You want to go where I’m going?”

  “Yeah,” said Luis. “I want you the fuck out of here.”

  I looked at the bartender and smiled, “He wants to go with me. That’s important, because I don’t ever want to take anybody someplace they don’t wanna go.”

  The bartender looked at me sideways and then shook her head. She walked off to the other end of the bar. Ken picked up his beer and took a long tilt.

  “I’ll drop you off,” said Luis. “A block, maybe—you can walk the rest. You’ll be safe. You got your associate.”

  “Lead on,” I said.

  “Ain’t you gonna drink your beer?”

  I shrugged. “Rudy’s gonna buy me one when we get back.”

  Luis’s face got mean and satisfied. Ken swilled the rest of his longneck and set it on the bar.

  “Car’s in the back,” said Luis. “C’mon.” He led us through the curtain past the stairwell.

  “All right,” I said to the back of Luis’s head, “we’re out of sight. You can have what’s in the bag now.”

  Luis spun around and chopped a finger at me. “Look, I’ve had it—”

  And WHAP! That’s when he got it. I smacked Luis between the peepers with the rubber mallet. He was all wrinkled forehead and kaleidoscope eyes, but not the only one surprised. The head of the mallet bounded from his forehead and flew off the handle. He deflated into a pile. I stood staring at the empty wooden handle in my hand.

  “The fuck you bring me for?” said Ken.

  “Ya know, Ken,” I said, “you just can’t buy shit for a buck these days.” I swapped the wooden handle for the roll of duct tape. Luis mumbled something in Spanish I didn’t habla. I rolled him over and taped his elbows together behind his back, then his ankles. I told Ken, “You said you wanted to be here,” and sat Luis up to run turns of tape securing his hands and wrists to his body, tore off the tape, and said, “besides, I need you to carry him up the stairs to his office.” I taped Luis’s mouth.

  “Why do I always get tapped for the grunt work?” said Ken.

  He pulled Luis to his feet and draped him over his shoulder like a carpet. On the stairs, “Jesus Christ, somebody wants to move a freezer—call Ken. Fucking piano—I told her not to buy that goddam thing.”

  I opened the back door and yelled, “Yeah, okay, I’m coming—let’s go.” I pulled the door closed, picked up Luis’s glasses, and trudged up the stairs. Luis sat flopped in his chair. Ken surveyed the row of cigarettes—about a third of the cases gone since my last visit—and the electronic equipment.

  A large red circle swelled on Luis’s forehead. His eyes were wild and his sinuses had emptied across the tape, down to his chin. He snuffled and strained through the flow, flaring his nostrils to gain his breath. I pulled the tape loose and he gasped a breath.

  He said, “Fuc—”

  I put the tape back in place.

  “You know, Luis,” I told him, “I’m willing to bet there’s a box of tissues in this desk.” I found them in the top right-hand drawer, pulled out a wad, and wiped his tape and chin. Folding once, I held the wad over his nose. “C’mon, honk. No reason to be embarrassed, I raised three kids.”

  He blew. I wiped and dropped the wad in the wastebasket. I studied his forehead, whistled, and shook my head, “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

  Ken shifted through the cases of computers, making a short stack on the floor.

  “I have a couple of questions,” I said. “I wasn’t going to do this. I planned to take you to the hospital and show you a little girl. Her house blew up and killed her mother. She’s horribly burned and struggling for every breath. But that would be cruel and unusual. And maybe you want to help me anyway.

  “You and your friend met with Hank Dunphy behind a fast food restaurant on Division Avenue. You took a bag full of money from Dunphy. Except I don’t think you liked the man you drove there in the green Taurus.”

  Ken sat on the pile of boxes he’d made and folded his hands in his lap. Luis’s eyes darted, refusing to look at me, his face astonished under the gray strip that c
overed his mouth.

  I leaned my backside on the desk, put my finger in Luis’s face, and pushed my face into his space. “I don’t think you like him because he talked to you just like this.”

  Luis locked hot and angry eyes with mine.

  “You didn’t like it then and you don’t like it now. That man you don’t like blew up a house with a woman and a little girl in it. I want you to tell me where to find him. I know you know. I know you’ve been providing vehicles, little odd jobs, and probably meals and housing. He pays good but he doesn’t respect you. You put up with that because the money is good. But what you don’t know is that he is a mercenary—a terrorist—and when he is done with you, he will kill you. He left one of his associates to rot in a stone quarry—a guy who’d been loyal but became a liability when he got hurt. When this man you don’t like is done here, you will be a liability.”

  I watched Luis close his eyes.

  I said, “Nod your head if you want to talk to me.”

  Luis nodded. I pulled the tape loose.

  Luis leaned toward me. He said, “Live fast, Anglo, life is short.”

  I put the tape back on and patted it. “Right. Well, that would have been too easy. Let’s see what’s in the bag.”

  Holding the bag open in both hands, I rolled my eyes up to Luis without raising my head. His eyes went wide. I said, “Humm? This?” I reached in the bag. Sweat ran down Luis’s forehead and over the red goose egg above his eyes. “No, not this, not yet.”

  I set the bag in my lap. “You know, I had planned to play ‘the hammer of truth game’ with you. You know, fix your hand to the top of the desk and ask you a bunch of questions I already know the answer to. When you lie I hammer your hand. When I get to the question I don’t know the answer, you flinch if you’re going to lie and I just keep pounding away until I get a straight answer—except you got a hard head and I bought a cheap hammer, so we got to improvise.”

  I opened the bag and looked in. “Oh, yes—indeed,” I said and seized an object in the bag. Luis bolted to his feet. I planted a foot in the middle of his chest and shoved him back in the chair. “Think of this as a trip to the dentist,” I said.