Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  “Indi’n goes by Paint an’ he call udder one yo, Polack Prince.”

  “See a vehicle, get a plate number?”

  “Yah sure, I got inna bush ’n dey da chase quit, I loop back on dose guys, write down way your old man taughted me.” Allerdyce handed him a note with scribbling.

  “These are plate numbers, not descriptions,” Service said.

  “Youse run dose plates, get description, den I tell youse what I seen, and we see, okay?”

  “Great.” The old man’s logic tended toward the arcane, often too ambiguous to parse; he sometimes complicated things for reasons he didn’t bother to explain, but there was always a point to what he did, no matter how bizarre it might seem at the moment.

  “Which hospital sewed you up?”

  “Hoppytall?” The old man sputtered. “Sew myself, dis not no big deal. Eight stitch, I shoulda been mebbe sawbones, make big bucks, screw nursies all day and night, hey.”

  “Where do you get your information, old man?” His fantasies seemed endless.

  Allerdyce looked puzzled. “I t’ink on somepin, den make it up, same way all pipples do.”

  No comeback for this logic. “When the hell did this happen?”

  “Day before taday.”

  “That would be yesterday?”

  “I said dat.”

  “How long has it been since you last saw this pair of assholes?”

  “Never seen da prince guy before, but Paint, been mebbe year back.”

  “Are they cons?”

  “Missingdemanners I t’ink, no falconies. Dey never done no hard-jaw time, hey. Dey pert good, jump fast, do deed, skedaddle quick-like.”

  “Any idea where they skedaddled to?”

  The old man squinted, sipped his coffee, pursed his lips. “Might, jest might.”

  It will come out eventually. Or not. “Where did this happen?”

  “Wah, not far.”

  Service had to chuckle. “Not far” or “just down the road,” these were Yooperisms for anything from sixty feet to six hundred miles. The thing with Yoopers was that they were hard-wired by history to be helpful to people in need, and if you asked for directions, you would get them, even if they were guessing. Motive could not be questioned, only execution.

  “Youse ’ave youse’s girlie rund dose plates, hey?”

  “No, I don’t want her in our shit-stream, and I’m suspended. I’ll have to think about who and how.”

  “Youse got oodles pals,” Allerdyce said.

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  Chapter 18

  Slippery Creek Camp

  Service stood on the deck of his camp, smoking. Face your own truth, asshole. A couple of punks kick the old man’s ass, threaten Friday and Shigun and maybe Karrylanne and Little Maridly and you keep going ahead? Selfish bastard. Why not just retire and be done with this shit? Everything you get involved in is complex, and maybe you cause things to be that way. Ever considered that possibility, Mr. Motivation? You cannot beat a whole system driven largely by money. Doesn’t happen.

  He sat on a step.

  The system’s created to make sure that the flow goes on, no matter what you or anybody else does. Even if you fight the damn system to a draw, where’s that put everyone? Nowhere. But sometimes a draw against a superior foe is as good as a win. Oh bullshit, you don’t believe that. That’s Chicago Cub propaganda, magic crystal thinking, not what you think or believe. What you believe is the Herbie Brooks formula. Take your opponent’s skills and style as your own, then beat their asses at their own game. You always have to have luck in your pocket, and if Herbie’s boys played nine more games against the Soviets, they would have been toasted, but they played only once and for all the marbles. Like you and Bozian. He’s not even living here anymore and he’s still trying to get you. Why? Time for you to stop thinking and get on with your work, doofus. Put on your big boy pants and get outside where you belong. No system is invulnerable, and sometimes one win is all it takes.

  “The Indian, Paint? Soo Tribe?” he had asked Allerdyce.

  “Yah sure, born raised Soo Tribe, t’ink.”

  “And the other guy’s from downstate?”

  “Da Polack Prince? Yah, mebbe De Twat, Flintucky, Saginasty, one dose places down dat way, hey.”

  Flint, Service thought. There’s an idea. Flint conjured the name Nosebone in his head. Last time he’d seen the gang leader, he’d been with Trip Bozian and the governor’s son had panicked, pulled his sidearm on the gang, and fired a wild shot. Nosebone, the gang’s leader, had stayed cool and let me talk the boy down and disarm him. Nosebone had been leader of the Flint Blood Moon Barbarians. Was he still with the gang, in jail, or dead? If the Polish Prince was a Flint guy, Nosebone would know him for sure. If he was still alive. If he was still around and not in prison. When Service knew him, the man had been a punk with a long antisocial rap sheet, nothing heinous or major, but the lifestyle of a lifetime fuckup. He had to have been in his early thirties then. Now? Fifties? Not sure. Jack Dylan was the longtime CO in Grand Blanc, a town south of Flint, and J.D. had been around that area forever. Good CO, not flashy, but did his job. J.D. answered immediately. “Dylan, Service here.”

  “This would be the on-hiatus Service?” the CO replied.

  “One and the same.”

  “What can I do you for? You ain’t one to call to chew social fat.”

  Service grinned. “The gang that called themselves the Barbarians, they still around?”

  “Lots of new blood in the saddles, but still around and still being run by some of the old heads.”

  “Nosebone?”

  “You’re talking about the head motherfucker in charge, Mr. Constantin “Connie” Pendeau.”

  “That’s his name? I only knew him as Nosebone.”

  “Probably Nose don’t even know his real name anymore. Nobody calls him that and I doubt if he ever looks at his driver’s license. Bone’s done so many drugs over decades that the black holes in his brain have smaller black holes within them, like a piece of modern art.”

  “You have dealings with him?”

  “Happily, no. But Skip has had the pleasure of lots of time.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Nah, some save-face jaw-jaw is all. Nosebone’s mellowing, like the rest of us—except you!”

  Skip was CO Tom Town, aka Skip Town, though the reason for the nickname was lost to history.

  Dylan said, “Give Skip a bump. I think he’s on real good terms with a lot of the gangbangers, Bone especially.” He added, “Hey, do they let a suspended guy use state phones and credit cards?”

  “Only in emergencies. This phone is my own.”

  “Good thinking. Keep things private, don’t give those Lansing bastards any more ammo, not that they need it. They get after somebody’s ass, they’ll just make up what they need. By the way, if I had somebody with Allerdyce’s experience down here, I’d have him in my truck too. So would Skip, so would most of us. Man, you guys had a kick-ass deer season.”

  “Thanks.” Of course, the main ass getting kicked was his own, Service knew.

  Skip Town listened for thirty seconds and gave Service Pendeau’s personal cell phone number and the gang’s clubhouse landline number.

  Service punched in the landline number and it was answered after a couple of rings, heavy-metal music blasting in the background. “Grady Service for Nosebone,” he told the man.

  “He, like, ain’t in.”

  “He’ll be in for me. Just tell him.”

  “You’re not the boss of me,” the voice responded

  “You guys recruiting ten-year-olds to the gang these days? Go tell Nose it’s Grady and I want to talk to his hairy ass.”

  The line lay open for a couple of minutes, exposing Service to music that assaulted his ears, some sor
t of acid-steel, burn-your-own-balls-off nasty rock that tended to all sound the same and be played at jet engine decibel levels that could be used to make attacking drones crash. It was amazing gang members could hear anything.

  He heard the phone being picked up and the background music fading. “Yo, Grady Service, you shittin’ me? What happened to that trigger-happy junior fish cop partner with you that night?”

  “He decided to pursue other career options.”

  “Heard he was the governor’s son, that right?”

  “Your source is solid.”

  “You make the little prick walk the plank?”

  “Didn’t have to. Jumped off all on his own.”

  “Would you have made him walk the plank, man?”

  “Yup.”

  “So what up, dude? Been, like a long, long time.”

  “I’m looking for a thug who calls himself the Prince. Supposed to run with a Soo Tribe Nish calls himself Paint.” Nish was short for Anishnaabe.

  Nosebone grunted softly. “The Prince and Paint. I know those dudes, Service. Low-run head-knockers, mostly freelance. What they done this time?”

  “I just need to talk to them.”

  “Why call me?”

  “Heard that the Prince might be a Flint guy, or was, and I figured if anybody would know, it might be you.”

  “You calling me a thug, man?”

  “No, an expert.”

  Nosebone laughed. “He’s a Doo-rand boy, the Prince, you know, south of Flint. Big sonuvabitch. He was a crotch-sniffer in high school, football, all that pussy shit, got him scholarships to Eastern to wrestle, but he burned out first month there. He dropped out and we heard his old man liked to have killed ’im.”

  “You know the father?”

  “Was outside captain of Saginaw Po-po, sayin. We call ’im GZ, but his last name is some fuckin’ consonant horseshit, like all kinds of z’s and y’s and like dat?”

  Service had to think for a minute. “Zyzwyzcky?”

  “’At’s ’im.”

  “He’s a former state trooper.”

  “Dat’s the man, man. Papa to da Prince of Stoopid.”

  Mind wandering, flashing back to the State Police Academy, hand-to-hand combat class, a huge candidate named Zyzwyzcky, six-five or six-six, all muscle and square-jawed, hissing and huffing and ready to do battle with hands the size of prize French hams. Knocked me out within ninety seconds, left my head spinning somewhere between Pluto and Uranus, and everybody laughing at me on my ass. Tree, naturally, jumped up and also lasted only ninety seconds, and then the two of us sat with our backs against a cinderblock wall, trying to clear the cobwebs, and Treebone mumbled, “Man, he kicked your ass like nothing.”

  “Less than nothing on yours.”

  “Man, somebody had to defend your honor.”

  “I’ve got no honor.”

  “Make sure you remind me next time,” his friend had said. Then, in a confessional tone, “No honor in it, man. I thought I’d kick that Polack’s big white ass and show my man how fights supposed to be made. I was gone hold ’at over yo head for like, forever.”

  “How’s that working out?” he’d asked his friend, and both of them broke down laughing.

  Zyzwyzcky had gone from the academy to the Saginaw post and from there, some years later, to the Saginaw city cop house, where he had risen to outside captain, a title for a job that worked outside all of HQ’s paper-storms and concentrated on supporting officers where it counted—in the field. Z had never been much of a swimmer in the bureaucratic paper sea, but he was brave, a natural leader, which made the outside captain job a perfect fit.

  Back to Nosebone. “The Prince is Zyzwyzcky’s kid?”

  “Maybe his only kid, too, and a by-the-number freaky fuckup Numbah One, sayin’.”

  “The son lives in Durand?”

  “No, man, not no more. I hear he live wit’ ’is old man, got place up to da Big Lake west of Cheboygan.”

  “Thanks Bone, I owe you one.”

  The gang leader giggled. “Too old to need one now, Service, but thanks. Keep your wheels on the see-ment, sayin’?”

  Zyzwyzcky, Five Z, they also called him, and Big Z, Grezgorz Zyzwyzcky. Small damn world, which was always the case in the cop community. Everybody knew everybody and gossip moved like honey in a hive, for better or for worse. Big damn Zyzwyzcky.

  Service called Treebone’s cell phone. “You snowed in over there?”

  “Depends on who is doin’ the askin’ and for what.”

  “Want to go visit Big Z?”

  Long pause. “Long as we don’t have to fight that gorilla again.”

  “No, we’re gonna emotionally kick his son’s ass. They jumped Allerdyce. Thought you being along would give us more weight.”

  “You mean gravitas, my friend, this being the word you are so hopelessly groping for, you cretin. I wouldn’t miss this gig.”

  “Good, we’ll text you when we pull off US 2 to pick you up tomorrow, say, oh seven hundred?” He knew his friend was at his camp in the swamps north of Rexton.

  Service found Allerdyce at the side of the house smoking one of his cigarettes.

  “We’re gonna go visit your pal the Prince.”

  “He know we comin’?”

  “He’ll know when we meet him.”

  “He run, dat kind, allas run if dey get sniff.”

  “Not that far, he won’t. Turns out that his old man’s a pal of Tree’s and mine. We went to the academy together.”

  “Treebone?”

  “We’re picking him up at his camp. You okay with that?”

  “Why I wunt be?”

  “Because Treebone scares the shit out of you.”

  “Not no more, him and me now what you call BFF.”

  “What the hell’s a BFF?”

  “Best Friends Forever, don’t you fish dicks keep up wit’ da social neckworks, Sonny?”

  Chapter 19

  Point Nipigon

  Cheboygan County

  Service easily located the address for Grezgorz Zyzwyzcky on a smartphone app. The listing was for Cheboygan, but his map app showed the location at Point Nipigon, south of town. When they got there, they found a split-level house with a spectacular view of Bois Blanc Island, about four miles north into Lake Huron.

  The house was modest and well cared for. No surprise there. Big Z, Mr. Spic and Span, had always been the most conscientious of all of them in terms of personal appearance. There was a large pole barn to the side and in front of the house, and a black Ford 150 sat in front of the driveway into the pole barn. The truck was uncapped, with a crew cab, and not a spot of rust. The thing had to be ten years old, but it looked like it just came off a dealer’s showroom. Big Z had always had a thing for appearances, and this truck made him look like a poster child for motor-heads everywhere. If the son was not there, Big Z would help them find him because Z was a fanatic on right and wrong and law and order, almost an apostle for all related subjects.

  Service nosed up behind the Ford and parked. The big door to the green pole barn was open and out strode Big Z with a huge smile on his face as he grappled first with Treebone and then with Service. “You assholes!” Zyzwyzcky bellowed happily. Allerdyce hung back from the collision of the three giants.

  “Vodka for you guys?” Big Z asked. “It’s the best and right from the old country.”

  Service said, “Big Z, it’s not even nine.”

  “Hey, we’re retired coppers and it can be any time we want it to be, am I right?”

  “Not for me,” Service said. Treebone held up his hands. Allerdyce said, “Vodka sound keen.”

  Zyzwyzcky said, “Leave it to the dwarf to be the real cop.”

  Limpy bristled. “Name’s Allerdyce. I ain’t no cop, and I ain’t no dwarf, asshole!”r />
  Big Z looked at Service, then turned back to Allerdyce and said, “I’m sorry, old-timer, I was just kidding.”

  “Bite me,” Allerdyce said. “Polack.”

  Tree’s eyes bobbed nervously, and Service stepped between the two men. Big Z said to Allerdyce, “Looks like you already shot off your mouth one time too many, old-timer.”

  Service took the retired Flint captain’s arm. “How about some coffee, Big Z? You used to drink it by the bucket.”

  After a moment Service asked, “Your son’s Thad?”

  Zyzwyzcky cocked his head like a bird taken with curiosity. “Thaddeus, yah. You know him?”

  “He lives with you?”

  The former trooper straightened up and turned serious. “What’s this about, Service?”

  It felt like Big Z’s famous hair-trigger temper was ready to go off, but his edge quickly turned reasonable. “What’s that dumbass done this time?”

  Service said, “We’d prefer to talk to Thaddeus.”

  “You’ll talk to me,” Big Z said.

  “Your son’s eighteen, Big Z. You know the law.”

  “His age is higher’n his IQ,” the man said bitingly.

  “Is he here?”

  “You want his butt out here?”

  “We can talk inside if he wants,” Service said, but the boy’s father was already talking away and huffing with emotion. “That would be good,” Service said to his old friend’s disappearing back. He could imagine little worse for a cop than to have another cop come calling about your kid. It was bad juju for all involved. “Get on the other side of the truck,” Service told Allerdyce. “We’ll give the kid a surprise.”

  Limpy chuckled and scuttled back to the truck.

  Ten minutes went by. No Thad, no dad. Service looked at Treebone. “The house doesn’t look all that big from out here.”

  “He’ll be out,” Tree said, just as the front door exploded open and out stumbled a blond bearded giant clad only in red boxer shorts. Barefoot, head askew, bloody lip, shouting, “What the fuck is wrong with you, old man, what the fuck!”

  The young giant’s pitch went up an octave as Big Z burst out the door with his fists clenched and the boy turned to run, saw Treebone and Service looming in his path, stopped and curled down into a protective shell, like he was expecting an attack from the front or the back. After a second, the boy squawked, “What is this shit?”