Downriver

by Loren D. Estleman

“The people. The fucking brothers and sisters that lived on the street. Didn’t matter what color you were or that all you wanted to do was keep the whole fucking city from burning down, if you had on a uniform you were the Man. They linked hands when they heard the siren, formed a human chain. I was driving — you were right about that — and I geared down and crawled till somebody lost his nerve or his grip and broke. Then they started throwing shit, bricks and busted paving and shit. It was the ugliest thing I ever seen, and I helped pull people out of fires burned all over with their flesh coming off in my hands.

  “We got to the place. Henry was on top of the truck before it stopped. He grabbed point on the hose and rode the ladder to the roof. A brick hit him in the leg on the way up and he almost fell, but he hung on with the nozzle under one arm and got his footing and climbed up a couple more rungs, I guess to get out of throwing range. He never seen the power line. He took forty-eight hundred volts, the coroner said.”

  I took a hit from the bottle. The alcohol splashed loudly in the silence. “You promised your sister you’d look after Henry?”

  “I sure stunk at it.”

  “How’d she take it?”

  “How you think? She blamed me. She got over it, though.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Maybe if she didn’t I would’ve. I don’t know.”

  “That when you quit?”

  “No, I hung on for a year. They were getting set to fire me so I left. My driving went to hell. Didn’t care if I got there on time or not. They frown on that. I took the wife and moved out. I’m a certified mechanic in Cleveland.”

  “Can you hot-wire a car?”

  “Gets easier every time they add a new anti-theft feature. I watch TV. I know you never use your own car when vou go to kill someone. I never thought doing it would cost so much, though. You seen how much I got left.” He finished his drink and turned the glass upside-down on the desk. “I got a friend in Lansing, like I said. He let me know when DeVries was getting out.”

  “He didn’t set the fire that got Henry killed. That was another building.”

  “I know that. What am I going to do, track down the brother or sister that throwed that brick?”

  A symbol. A large black headline-draped symbol, Richard DeVries. I wondered how many George St. Charleses there were in Detroit, in the world. I wondered how many other victims’ survivors were still looking to collect on forgotten debts. Suddenly I got mad. It might have been the whisky on an empty stomach. I slid off the desk. The room tilted, then returned to center. “Let’s go. My car’s down the block.”

  His face got tired. “You’re turning me in?”

  “No. Here.” I held out his gun.

  He stared at it. “Where we going?”

  “You asked to see my client.”

  After a long time he accepted the gun.

  19

  THE ALAMO HOTEL looked worse by day. Dirty sunlight canting in through the front window threw the neon letters across the old rug and an older man snoring in the elephant’s-foot chair. He had on a stained shapeless sportcoat over a dirty undershirt and his ankles were bare above deck shoes worn through at the toes. The hole in his gray stubble had one tooth in it.

  In that light the man propping his chin on his hand behind the counter looked less like Vincent Price and more like a long stagnant drink of water with shoeblack on his hair. He was wearing the same shawl collar and brown wing tips, but he had shaved recently. Tufts of bloodstained toilet paper clung to his chin like dandelions gone to seed. His runny eyes took in St. Charles and me with a look that said nothing could surprise or repulse him.

  “Double’s forty bucks. Up front.”

  I said, “Where’s Hank Aaron?”

  Recognition sank in like rancid butter melting. He took his chin out of his hand. A piece of toilet paper fluttered like a moth to the counter. “Home,” he said. “With four cracked ribs and a pink slip. I got a scattergun back here.”

  “I remember. Mr. DeVries in? We want to talk to him.”

  He relaxed visibly. “Eighteen. Upstairs—”

  “End of the hall. I remember that too.”

  The tight staircase smelled of dust and worse. We kept our hands off the walls. At the top St. Charles hesitated. I looked back at him and he caught up. He had his hand on the gun in his side pocket. We stopped before eighteen and I laid my knuckles against the scaly wood.

  “Yeah.” The big man’s voice was muffled on the other side.

  “Walker,” I said. “I brought someone with me.”

  The door opened a crack. A brown eye looked down at us from near the top.

  “Who’s he?”

  “George St. Charles. You wouldn’t know him.”

  “What’s in his pocket?”

  “The ugliest gun you ever saw. I told him to keep it out of sight or get slapped with an anti-blight citation.”

  “What’s he fixing to do with it?”

  “Shoot you, what else? Open the door.”

  The command was just weird enough, or else he was used to obeying orders from men who sounded like they expected him to. Anyway he opened the door. Standing there he blocked whatever light was in the room. He was wearing stiff new clothes from a Big and Tall shop, but the buttons were strained on the plaid flannel shirt and the twill pants rode dangerously low on his hips.

  “Stay away from the stomach and lower torso,” I told St. Charles. “Takes too long; he might get medical help. The heart’s too easy to miss. Bullets glance off the skull sometimes. The groin’s best at close range. There’s a major artery there and it’ll all be over in a few minutes. Make the first one count.”

  DeVries didn’t move. Neither did St. Charles for several seconds. Then he took the gun out of his pocket.

  He wasn’t shaking now. Somehow that seemed worse than when he was. I bent my fingers under the hem of my coat. If I’d gauged him wrong I’d have to be quick. The Police Special was all the way behind my hip.

  “Shit.” He thrust the German weapon across his body, turning the butt up.

  I took it. I breathed for the first time in a while. “Go home,” I said. “Nineteen sixty-seven’s over finally. Happy New Year.”

  He turned exhausted features on me. “How’d you know?”

  “You’re no killer. Twenty years ago you might’ve been. Henry’s a long time dead.”

  “I hope you’re not waiting for thanks.”

  “You can get a cab on Jefferson.”

  He walked down the hall and descended the stairs. We listened to the lobby door slam.

  “What the hell was that?” DeVries demanded.

  “Not a redstick ranger,” I said. “He wasn’t lying to the Wakelys about that.”

  “That was him? No shit. What’s his problem?”

  “Nothing to do with you. Can we go in, or have you got a woman in there?”

  He started a little, then moved aside. “Make it quick. I’m going out.”

  The room had a chair, a bed, and yellow-painted walls. A braided oval rug had started to take on the contours of the boards beneath. The window looked out on a block wall. The toilet he’d said he was lucky to have was down the hall, the telephone mounted next to the door. He shared them with the floor, and maybe with the rest of the building. He left the hall door open and hung a leg over the footboard of the bed.

  I pointed my chin at the door. “House rule?”

  “Hot in here, man. Window’s stuck shut.”

  “Headed anywhere in particular, or just restless?”

  “Thought I’d take your advice, shoot some hoops. You my parole cop now?”

  “You act wired.”

  “Yeah. You think I’d be used to sitting around. It’s harder when nobody’s making you. Would you of let that dude shoot me?”

  “If he were ever going to he’d have done it up north when we came out of the lake. One siren wouldn’t have stopped him. You didn’t look too worried.”

  “I never seen the dude in my lif
e. I didn’t know what was what.”

  I told him what was what. He ran a hand over his short beard.

  “I thought I was the only one still fighting that fight,” he said.

  “Some wounds take more stitches to close.”

  “I was a stupid kid. I got no trouble admitting that now. But I didn’t start out to hurt no one. Especially not a brother.”

  “He knew that. Finally.” I twirled the chair and straddled the seat. The legs swayed under my weight. I figured DeVries had never sat in it. “We could be getting a break from high up. Leland Stutch has offered to find out some things in return for whatever we scratch up on our end.”

  “Who’s Leland Stutch?”

  “You never heard of the Commodore?”

  “Him. Hell, ain’t he dead by now?”

  “Not hardly.”

  “What’s his angle?”

  “He spent an hour explaining it. The point is he’s got drag.”

  “Can he get the money out of Hendriks, you figure?”

  “If he wanted to he could draw a check on the household account. What he’s going to do is help us prove Hendriks was here at the time of the robbery. Don’t say you know that. The cops don’t.”

  “What’s the cops got to do with anything? Man in jail can’t give me what I got coming.”

  “He can if he wants to stay out of jail.”

  He grinned slowly and leaned back against the headboard, lacing his hands behind his shaved head. The box springs groaned. “Thought you said you was honest.”

  “There’s honest and honest. Gouging stolen money from thieves was good enough for Errol Flynn.”

  “You ain’t wearing green.”

  “Even Errol would put on gray in Detroit.”

  “You believe me about not robbing that armored car?”

  “It’s nothing I could take to court. Yet. But yeah. If there’s a way to make Hendriks square up with you we’ll do it. But if he hit that car and killed Davy Jackson he’s going down for it either way.”

  “I ain’t paying for eithers.”

  “Call a plumber. They guarantee their work.”

  Something started beeping. DeVries was off the bed and halfway to the door when he realized what direction the noise was coming from. He hung back. I unclipped the paging device from inside my coat and turned it off. “You got a date for basketball or what?”

  “Lady called,” he said. “She’s calling me back. It ain’t worth talking about.”

  “I guess not.” I watched him starting to pace. “You letting me do this like we agreed?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Shit. You as nosy as one of them guards. I’m getting my ashes hauled is all.”

  “You do pretty good for a guy just out of the joint.”

  “Coach always said I was a self-starter.”

  I decided I was wired too. It was getting so you couldn’t count on two hours’ sleep doing the trick. I rose and turned the chair back the other way. “I’ve got a message. Okay if I use the horn?”

  “Don’t tie it up.”

  The hallway had been repainted recently, judging by how few numbers had been scratched on the wall beside the telephone. A him of grime was forming already. I bonged two dimes into the slot and dialed my service. The mouthpiece smelled of bad breath.

  “One call, Mr. Walker,” said the sugary voice. “She left a number to call back. A Mrs. Marianne.”

  20

  THE EARLY HOT SPELL was in its third day. Ralph Lauren halter tops and alligator sandals were out in Birmingham, in convertibles and on bicycles and walking dogs on the sidewalks. I was starting to feel less strung out as I turned in between the concrete posts and ground to a halt before an open garage with a Stiletto and a maroon Turbo Saab parked inside. The driveway looked strange without Alfred Hendriks’ Porsche sitting in it.

  In broad daylight the house looked less like a cut deck of cards and more like the place where James Mason lived above Mt. Rushmore in North by Northwest. Decks and balconies ringed both levels and cedar siding blended with tall evergreens planted in the yard. Sprinklers swished there, part of an underground system.

  She answered the door herself in a gold silk blouse and the tight black pants we used to call toreadors when cornfed blondes wore them and nothing else in magazines. They had gold stitching down the sides. Her feet were bare in open-toed pumps. “Mr. Walker? My God, twelve o’clock on the button. I’m Edith Marianne. Thanks for making the time.”

  She laid a slim cool hand in mine and applied some pressure, making eye contact the whole time. Hers were gray and tilted like a cat’s. Her complexion was fair, almost pale, and her chin was a shade too large for the rest of her features but perfectly round. It gave her face an aggressive cast. I’d been right about her hair turning red in sunlight.

  “It’s such a beautiful day I thought we’d have lunch outdoors. I hope you don’t have hay fever or anything like that.”

  “If I did I’d lie.”

  She made polite laughter and led me through a living room done in eggshell and cream and light. Artists’ charcoal renderings of the Stiletto hung everywhere in mats and frames. We went up three steps and between sliding glass doors onto a redwood deck, where Timothy Marianne got up from his seat at a wicker table to shake my hand.

  “Good to see you again, Walker. We’re breaking in a new cook this weekend. You can take your chances with the rest of us.”

  He had on a thin white cardigan with blue piping over a blue sportshirt and brushed jeans. The outfit ran around five hundred dollars and looked as if he had been wrestling in it. I said, “I’ve eaten in places where they served antidotes for dessert. I can take it.”

  From our ice cream chairs we had a view of hills and trees and suburban communities as far north as Iroquois Heights. At that distance the Heights looked well-ordered and clean, which they were to a point. A Hispanic woman with thick ankles and her hair in a bun came out of the house carrying a tray and set a tall glass containing pieces of fruit in front of each of us. We unfolded our napkins and dug in with long-handled spoons.

  “I get more business done here than in the office,” Marianne said. “Edith says it’s because I’m more charming when I’m relaxed, but I think it’s her. My life took a steep upward swing when I met her.” He reached across the table to squeeze her hand. She smiled.

  “I heard it was at the auto show.”

  He gave her back the hand. “That story. I don’t know where it got started. It’s true she used to model for one of the agencies that handle the exhibits, but actually we met at a party following the dedication ceremony for the General Motors plant in Hamtramck. The Big Three were all represented, and I was still connected with Ford as an independent consultant. She was with some old wheezer from the Chrysler advertising department.”

  “Public relations,” she corrected. “He was a sweet man. I reminded him of his granddaughter.” There were definitely magnolias in her speech. One of those delta accents.

  “Anyway it took me a year to sweep her off her feet. I was going through a divorce at the time. Ever been in love, Walker?”

  “Once. I was going through a marriage at the time.”

  “The right wife is more than a companion. She knows your head better than you do. Every time I bounced something off her when I was building the business, she echoed the same doubts I had but was unwilling to admit. If Ed met her sooner I’m convinced it wouldn’t have taken eight years.”

  “More like eighteen,” she said.

  He laughed. Then he wasn’t laughing. “So that’s why I asked Edith to invite you to lunch.”

  “I was wondering about that.”

  “At first I wanted Al Hendriks here too, but he’s busy in the Detroit office today. Now I’m glad. I sensed a hostility between you yesterday that didn’t have anything to do with this mess you’re investigating.”

  I finished my fruit. So far the cooking was okay.

  Mrs. Marianne said, “Al’s abrasive but honest. I can see that qu
ality in people. I see it in you.” She smiled. “If he did something wrong in the past, which Tim and I don’t believe for one minute he did, it should have no bearing on his present position as general manager of Marianne Motors. It can only hurt a company that promises to employ over six hundred thousand people during the next five years.”

  “My client was framed for armed robbery. He did twenty years.”

  “He was an arsonist.”

  I looked at Marianne. His face had gotten stony, but free enterprise glittered in his eye. “I have contacts on the police,” he said. “They looked up the case. Your man set a building on fire. Hardly an innocent.”

  The cook collected our glasses and dealt out wooden bowls of lettuce and tomato slices without dressing. I waited until she withdrew.

  “You don’t do twenty years for a botched arson in an uninhabited building when everyone else is doing it and getting out in two. They hooked him for robbery armed resulting in the death of an accomplice. He didn’t do it.”

  “Why?” Marianne demanded. “Because you’re representing him?”

  “Actually it’s the other way around.”

  He started to say something. His wife touched his arm. Her eyes were on me. “What does Mr. DeVries want? To clear his name?”

  “He doesn’t think it’s worth clearing. He wants cash.”

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred thousand. That’s the amount that was stolen.”

  Mrs. Marianne touched her husband’s arm again, although he didn’t look as if he wanted to say anything this time. “Does it have to come from Al?”

  “He didn’t say.” I crunched lettuce.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he’d take it from anyone who offered it and be satisfied. To the point of not doing anything against Hendriks anyway.”

  Marianne shoved aside his salad untouched. “Say I give him the two hundred thousand. I’m not saying I will. What’s my guarantee he won’t come back for more?”

  “Call the cops if he does. If you don’t believe his story you’ve got nothing to lose. This isn’t blackmail. That takes evidence and we don’t have it. The money works out to a living wage over two decades. He thinks it’s owed.”

  “Tim, pay the two dollars.”