by Mick James
Just on the off-chance, he drove past his old apartment. It looked like the kitchen light was on and shining out the window. He stared but kept driving, positive he hadn’t left a light on. It could mean only one thing, Prez. He checked his rear view mirror, but didn’t see Prez’s vehicle. He drove around the block, past the front of the building and couldn’t spot anything that suggested Prez was around.
He drove home, pulled into the underground parking and looked around carefully before he climbed out of the car, then he hurried onto the elevator and up to the fourth floor.
Chapter Seventy-Five
Bobby was deeply immersed in more of Morris Montcreff’s files when his office phone rang.
“This is Bobby,” he answered.
“Bobby, this is Daryl Woodley.”
Alarm bells immediately sounded in Bobby’s head.
“Daryl, how are things?”
“Question for you,” Daryl said ignoring Bobby’s question. “Do you know anyone in Arizona or maybe New Mexico?”
“Arizona or New Mexico,” Bobby repeated cautiously. “No, can’t say that I do.”
“Ever been down there? Maybe a little week-long vacation or something just to get the frost out of your feet in winter.”
“Not a bad idea, but no I’ve never been able to do that. I guess I never had much of an inclination.” Bobby took a chance. “What’s this about Daryl? You got a condo down there?”
“I wish. No, nothing like that. I got a notification someone tried to make a couple of purchases, get a cash advance using our VISA card down there. I’m guessing whoever ran off with Christine’s purse got the cards.”
“And you’re thinking I did that?” Bobby conjured up a fairly strong indignant tone.
“That might be a bit strong, I just wondered is all.”
“A couple of things, Daryl. First, anything like that was most likely done online, probably no more than a mile or two from where one of us is sitting. Second, do you really think I’m the sort of individual who would do that? Let alone try and pull that stunt within a week of finding your wife on the street? Give me a break,” he said piling on more of the indignant tone.
“Just had to check, I don’t know, thought maybe you might have run into someone like that when you were vacationing up in Duluth,” he said and let that hang there.
Bobby felt his heart skip a beat and decided to go for broke.
“Yeah, that’s right, Daryl. I did four-plus years of a seven-year sentence because I mishandled a trust fund. I’ve paid my debt, I’m working, I’m trying to put my life back together. You know, like your wife Christine. Only I didn’t have someone hand me a blank check when I got out and tell me they would cover any expenses.”
“Damn it, my wife was assaulted…”
“Please don’t take offense, Daryl, or actually do, I don’t give a flying fuck. I found your wife on the street. I didn’t know she was a druggy. I thought she might be mentally handicapped. I did think someone had probably assaulted her and from what I could tell she was in need of medical attention so I took her to the nearest hospital and yes, I offered to pay the bill. Maybe next time I’ll know better. Anything else?”
“Look Bobby, I’m sorry if I offended you. It’s just, well, you have to admit it’s a little strange. Christine working for the County and all.”
“Offended me? Oh, no Daryl, you didn’t just offend me. You really pissed me off. You insulted me. I’m still not sorry I stopped to assist someone, in this instance your wife, who was in desperate need of help. Obviously that physical assault is the least of her problems and I wish both of you well on that score. Beyond that, I don’t think we have much to discuss. Was there anything else?”
“Bobby, I have to ask…”
“Daryl, I had better get back to work.” Bobby said and hung up. He waited for fifteen minutes to see if Daryl Woodley phoned back. Thankfully he didn’t. Bobby took out his cell and phoned Prez, he ended up leaving a message.
“Prez, call me. You’ve got a potential problem.”
He phoned again at the end of his work day and left the same message. His phone rang just as he was about to climb into bed.
“You plan on coming home tonight?”
“Prez, thanks for finding the time to fit me in.”
“You coming home?”
Bobby ignored the question. “You have a potential problem.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“It’s more of a who, actually. Christine Woodley.”
“Talk about crazy,” Prez half laughed.
“Yeah well, I hope it was worth it. She’s back in rehab.”
“How do you know that?”
“Her husband, who happens to be a cop by the way, a detective, told me. They’re looking for whoever kicked the shit out of her. Pretty safe guess they aren’t going to stop until they find the guy.”
“That wasn’t me who did that. She just got a little greedy is all and pissed someone off.”
“You dumb shit. You put her in the hospital.”
“I already told you it wasn’t me.”
“Where’s her car?”
“She traded it.”
“What?”
“You listening, she traded it, for crack and some meth. No one forced her.”
“You’re at my apartment, aren’t you?” He visualized Prez sitting in a chair tilted back staring out the window at nothing. He waited, but no reply seemed to be forthcoming.
“Prez, get the urn with your mother’s ashes out of there. Then get hold of whoever has that car and tell them to get rid of it. The police are looking for it, the thing belongs to a goddamned detective’s wife.”
“When you coming home?”
“Right now I think it would be a good idea for both of us if we didn’t see one another.”
Prez let loose with a long exhale into his phone. “Suit yourself, high and mighty,” he said, then hung up.
It only took Bobby a minute to come up with a plan.
Chapter Seventy-Six
“Mr. Custer,” Morris Montcreff said into his phone and waited.
“Yes, sir,” Bobby responded. He set down the file he’d been reviewing and took a deep breath.
“Well?”
“I think it’s a discussion we should have in person, sir. Nothing concerning your contractual obligations by the way or anything I’ve come across thus far reviewing your files.”
“Oh?” Montcreff sounded halfway interested.
“Yes, sir.”
Morris Montcreff exhaled into the phone. It reminded Bobby of Prez doing the same thing the night before. “Okay, I can give you fifteen minutes. You know the Starbucks…” Montcreff proceeded to give Bobby directions to a particular location where they would meet at five o’clock, then promptly hung up without waiting for a reply.
Bobby was at Starbucks ten minutes early and went in to order a coffee. He was reading the menu posted up high on the wall when someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Mr. Montcreff will see you outside.”
Morris Montcreff was waiting in the parking lot. He was sitting in the back seat of a black limo with two formidable-looking body guards. While the man who tapped Bobby on the shoulder searched him for a weapon the guy in the passenger seat climbed out of the car and waited politely. He opened the rear door for Bobby once the pat down had been completed.
“No, I’m not interested in doing that,” Montcreff was saying into his phone and nodded as Bobby climbed in.
The air conditioning was a welcome sensation after standing out in the heat and humidity while some guy with a hook nose rubbed his hands between Bobby’s legs looking for a gun. Bobby recognized the driver as the same one who had driven the Humvee when he first met Morris Montcreff. The man sat behind the wheel and stared straight ahead.
“I’ll look forward to hearing from you,” Montcreff said sounding like he didn’t mean a word of it, then disconnected his cell and turned toward Bobby.
“Sorry about th
at, afraid you’ve only got twelve minutes now,” he said without smiling.
“Not a problem sir, there’s something that came to my attention. I just thought you should be aware of it. Not sure it’s going to be a problem, but I don’t want to have either one of us surprised.”
“And this concerns what, exactly.”
“Two brothers named Dubuque and Mobile,” Bobby said, then counted to three giving the names a chance to have an effect.
Montcreff’s facial expression didn’t give anything away so Bobby gulped and forged ahead.
“When we were first introduced I mentioned that I had met and become acquainted with Prez Clarken through the death of his mother, Kate Clarken. I think I indicated my suspicion that he may have been involved in their demise. I…”
“May have been involved? No, you told me he killed them because they killed his mother,” Montcreff interrupted.
Bobby nodded and felt the sweat beginning to run down his back. “Here’s the thing, I filed some paperwork for Prez Clarken.” Montcreff suddenly focused more intently. “Nothing really complicated, just a power of attorney and a couple of other documents actually. I thought if I could help the guy out, I could gradually distance myself. Anyway, I needed a little help from a contact I had at the County, I put her in touch with Prez. One thing led to another, apparently he caused her to relapse, she’s back on drugs, crack cocaine. She was assaulted, ended up in the hospital and now I guess she’s back in rehab.”
“I don’t see how any of this has anything to do with me.”
“I’m not sure it does, sir. Unfortunately it turns out her husband is a cop, a detective actually. Guy named Daryl Woodley. He came to see me at my office yesterday. He didn’t have Prez’s name, I didn’t give it to him. But just looking down the road. If he get’s Prez, maybe puts some pressure on him, Prez mentions Dubuque and Mobile and possibly you by association, maybe just to save his own skin. Well, you can see how things could get out of hand rather quickly.”
“How did this cop end up on your doorstep?”
“She works or worked, at County. Like I said, I had filed some paperwork for Prez. I’m not sure if she mentioned me to her husband or they just went through a list of people she may have been in contact with through the course of County business. What worries me is if his wife did mention me, she may have mentioned this Prez character. After all he’s the one who supplied her with the drugs. If the police get to Prez and lean on him maybe he gives up Dubuque and Mobile….”
“They aren’t going to say anything,” Montcreff snorted.
“Yeah I know, but if he ties it into his friend Arundel getting his throat slit. His mother being shot…you see? It’s two and possibly four unsolved cases cleared up.” Then Bobby hastily added, “I’m sure you didn’t have anything to do with either situation but, well, do you need the police poking around?”
“You think he’d be that stupid, this Prez idiot?”
“I think I don’t know what he’d do under the circumstances. I do know there’s a cop, in fact a detective, with a wife who was assaulted. She was most likely raped after Prez got her back on the drugs. I think it’s fair to assume that detective could put a lot of pressure on a guy like Prez and then who knows? I’m just thinking forewarned is forearmed,” Bobby said, then hoped Montcreff didn’t give the nod to have him taken out and shot.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Bobby drove past his old apartment just to see if he might spot Prez’s car. He didn’t. The sun was at an angle and reflecting off the window making it virtually impossible to determine if the kitchen light was still on and he could see no advantage to actually entering the place. Instead he thought it made more sense to pick up a thick pork chop and a bottle of wine for dinner, then head home.
He ate his dinner at the kitchen counter, sipped a pleasant Cabernet and surfed online. He had the deadbolt locked on the front door and from time to time stared at his cell phone sitting on the counter. He finished the wine and went to bed halfway through the news at ten. He slept fitfully and dragged himself into the shower the following morning.
On the way into the office he used the pay phone at the Super America to call Prez. He didn’t get an answer and he didn’t leave a message. He phoned Prez from a pay phone in the First Bank building early that afternoon and from a different Super America again on his way home hanging up both times once the message recording began.
He locked his deadbolt the moment he closed the door behind him, then turned on his laptop and got online. He left the laptop on, viewed the occasional video on YouTube and worked his way through a bottle of Merlot until he went to bed a little after midnight.
He set his breakfast aside, ate a moderate dish of frozen yogurt to calm his stomach and left for the office. The large figure leaning against his Mercedes in the secure underground parking lot looked ominously familiar.
Hippo leaned against the driver’s door of the Mercedes with his arms folded. He wore a pair of camouflage trousers cut off about mid-calf, possibly the largest pair Bobby had ever seen. His enormous upper body was stuffed into a grey T-shirt with the moniker Swim Team, which would seem to lead to all sorts of questions.
Hippo remained focused and made no effort to move as Bobby approached. For his part, Bobby was calculating how quickly he could outrun the big man provided he didn’t have a gun and then considered which of the two exits was the closest. Bobby stopped maybe fifteen feet from his Mercedes and didn’t say anything.
Hippo continued to lean against the Mercedes and study Bobby. Eventually he exhaled audibly, then said, “Dubuque and Mobile, they were my brothers.” It wasn’t so much a statement as it was an explanation.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t realize they were related, were family. Really sorry.”
Hippo nodded, then said, “Montcreff said it was you that found out about it, this fuck named Precious, called himself Prez. You told Montcreff he’s the one snuffed Dubuque and Mobile.”
“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s right, at least as I understand it.”
“How’d you find out?”
“I was giving a woman a ride, name of Kate Clarken, they were after her, I guess, I didn’t know her, I was just doing my job. Anyway, this Precious, Prez guy, he was her son. He kept following me, showing up at my apartment, threatening me and shit. I figured it was something Mr. Montcreff should know about, ‘case this bastard led to problems down the road.”
“You know where I can find him.”
“You give me your cellphone number I’ll get that information to you in about the next ninety minutes.”
“You don’t have it with you, you don’t remember it?”
“I’ll give you an address, his cell number, his license number, I don’t keep that in my head. I can tell you he has at least two weapons, pistols, automatics, big. Oh, and he’s got a silencer for at least one of them.”
Hippo thought about that for a moment, then gave his cell number to Bobby and walked over to the elevator and pressed the button. As the doors opened he turned to Bobby and said, “Ninety minutes, I expect to hear from you.” Then the doors closed and Bobby was left alone in the parking garage.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
He wrote down Prez’s cellphone number and the license number of his SUV, copied Arundel’s address off the power of attorney document and headed for the office elevators.
“Will you be back today, Mr. Custer?” Marci asked, flashing her shark smile. It was just a little before nine in the morning.
“Back in fifteen minutes, just a short errand.”
Bobby took the elevator down to the second floor and hurried along the skyway system of second-floor corridors through two other buildings until he came to the First National Bank building. He took the escalator down to the first floor, walked over to one of the few remaining pay phones and dialed Hippo’s number.
After the third ring Hippo answered with a grunt.
“I’ve got that address for you,” Bobb
y said, then read off the address to Hippo. “Here’s the license number on his SUV, it’s black with chrome wheel rims, the kind that spin. You want his cellphone number?”
“Give it to me.”
Bobby reeled off the number, Hippo repeated it.
“That’s it,” Bobby said. “I should tell you the cops might be looking for him, too. I guess he got some cop’s wife strung out, some ex-junkie who got herself raped, robbed, traded her car for another fix. Ended up in the hospital, guess she’s back in rehab now. Anyway, just be careful and make sure the cops aren’t watching him.”
“Are they watching him?”
“Not that I’m aware, they may not even know about him yet. But they will sooner or later, just make sure it’s not sooner.”
“‘Preciate the heads up,” Hippo said, then hung up.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Bobby was in the living room lounging on his couch in front of the flat-screen, sipping the last of his wine. He was not looking forward to tomorrow and was in the process of watching the news on the flat-screen when he saw the report of a car that had been set on fire in the State Park down along the river. The camera panned to show what was left of a burned out SUV. It could have been Prez’s, maybe those were the same distinctive forty-inch wheel rims beamed on the flat-screen for a second and a half, maybe not. Then again, it could have been any one of a thousand vehicles in the metro area. No further information was available and after sixty seconds the News broke to a yogurt commercial, but it had been just enough to let Bobby feel hopeful, maybe.
He suddenly heard something. He gave a casual glance over his shoulder and there was Hippo standing behind him.
“Jesus Christ, how in the hell did you … God you scared me half to death. What? Where? God, sorry, it’s just that I didn’t expect to, to see you. How did you get in here? Is everything all right?”