Bad Optics

by Joseph Heywood

  Service said, “Thaddeus Zyzwyzcky, also known as the Prince?”

  Big Z stood directly behind his son. “What of it?” the boy snarled at Service.

  “You run with a partner they call Paint?”

  “I got lots of partners, man, and that name don’t seem like one of them.”

  Treebone whistled and Allerdyce strode out from behind the truck and marched over to the boy. “That is him, sir,” the old poacher said. “Name is Prince. His Indi’n partner’s called Paint.” Allerdyce pointed to his stitches. “They done this, the botuvum.”

  Young Zyzwyzcky didn’t react but asked, “Who let you out of your nursing home, old man?”

  “How big’s this Paint?” Treebone asked.

  “Size of my boy,” Big Z said.

  Tree said, “Took two of you short-dunk lunkheads whoop this itty bitty old man . . . this dwarf? What kind pussies are you two?”

  “He ran,” the boy complained. “He’s sneaky quick.”

  “I ain’t no dwarf!” Allerdyce shouted.

  “You admit to beating this man,” Service said to young Zyzwyzcky. It was not a question.

  “I swear to god I ain’t never seen this dwarf dude before,” Big Z’s son said.

  His old man said, “Thaddeus,” and thumped him in the back of the head with the knuckles on the back side of his right hand. The boy stumbled and stammered, said, “F-f-fuck. If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”

  Allerdyce surged forward and viciously and accurately kicked the boy between the legs, dropping him to all fours, holding his crotch and gagging.

  Service spun Allerdyce over to Tree, who said, “We might could get you tryout as a kicker for the Lions. They ain’t had shit since Hanson hung up his jock.”

  Allerdyce grinned, pointed at the boy, leaned down, and said, “T’ink I busted ’em.”

  The boy moaned. Treebone said, “Good chance.”

  “What the hell is going on?” the elder Zyzwyzcky demanded.

  “Your boy and his friend Paint beat up Allerdyce to send a message to me.”

  Big Z grabbed his son by his long hair and jerked him to his feet. Service guessed the muscled kid would go three hundred pounds easily, and his old man had snatched him up like a bag of popcorn.

  “We didn’t want to hurt him!” the kid yelled. “Was just meant to be a message, swear to god.”

  “Don’t swear at God!” Allerdyce hissed at the boy, who dropped back to the ground, groping himself.

  “What message?” Big Zyzwyzcky asked his son.

  Service answered. “That I should retire from my suspension and stay away from a certain place in the U.P.”

  “What suspension?”

  “Mine,” Service said.

  “Now?”

  “Until July 1.”

  “For what?”

  Service pointed at Allerdyce. “Having him in my truck for deer season.”

  “The dwarf, you got suspended for hauling a dwarf in your patrol truck?” Big Z asked with a huge grin.

  Allerdyce was too quick for either Service or Treebone to stop him, and once again he aimed a perfect snap kick, this time squarely between Big Z’s legs, and like his son, the retired cop dropped to his knees, went to his side, and began gagging.

  “I ain’t no dwarf!” Allerdyce said with an angry hiss.

  “Déjà vu,” Treebone said.

  Allerdyce glared at Treebone. “What youse call me?”

  Treebone put his hands in front of his crotch. “Hey old man, we’re on your side.”

  “Howzcum youse let dem call me dwarf?”

  Service said, “If they hadn’t called you that word, you wouldn’t have gotten in your kicks. We did you a favor.”

  Allerdyce went bobblehead. “Wah, felt really good, dose kicks.”

  The elder Zyzwyzcky rolled on his side. “I believe that old fellow may have killed me, Grady.”

  Treebone said, “You’re just wishin’ you dead, Big Z. It’ll pass.”

  “We need to know who paid Thaddeus and his partner and what their exact instructions were,” Service told their old associate.

  The father kicked his son. “Stop gagging and tell these officers what they want to know, and do it now.”

  Thad rolled on his back and exhaled. “Was a woman, paid us two hundred each, easy money. Just kick his scrawny ass and tell him to tell his friend to quit the damn game before somebody gets seriously hurt.”

  Service evaluated what he had heard. “This woman met you guys where and when?”

  “We were in Marquette. Joint called Scallywags, out on the road to Big Bay.”

  “How’d she know to find you there?”

  “Kinda like our hangout over that way. Over this way it’s Beaudoin’s up to the Soo.”

  “You talk to her inside or outside?”

  “I want a lawyer,” the son keened.

  His father kicked him halfheartedly again and the kid said, “Outside, in the parking lot.”

  “She paid you guys two bills each and what else, drugs?”

  “Nothing,” the boy insisted. “Just cash. We’re professionals.”

  Another kick from the old man, but hard, and it rolled the boy over and the old man yelled, “Professional what? Fuckups?”

  “Convincers,” the boy said. “We got more work than we can handle.”

  Treebone blocked yet another kick from the young man’s father. “Steady Zyzwyzcky. There’s nothing personal here, okay?”

  Zyzwyzcky nodded, “I’m cool, Tree. You got kids?”

  Treebone nodded. “I hear you, brother.”

  Service looked at the boy. “Two bills and no drugs. She blow you guys in your vehicle or in her truck?”

  The kid’s eyes went wide. “How do you know she had a truck?” the Prince asked.

  His old man popped him lightly on the back of the head.

  “We aren’t coming in here blind, Thad. We’ve already talked to your partner. He says the whole thing was your idea.”

  “Bullshit,” the boy said. “He all for it. Who you think got her to give us blow jobs?”

  “In her truck?”

  “Yah.”

  “Tell me about the truck.”

  “Silver, man, new shit painted on the doors.”

  “What was painted on the doors?”

  “Picture of a doohickey,” the younger Zyzwyzckyi said, and pointed up at the sun in the sky. He waved his hand in a circular motion.

  Doohickey. “You mean a satellite?”

  The kid nodded. Service said, “Still not buying. What exactly did the words say on the truck?”

  “I don’t read good,” the boy said. He was blushing.

  “You read satellite pretty good.”

  “No, was the pitcher over the writing, that doohickey.”

  “What color was the writing?”

  “Red, man, bright red.”

  “On a silver truck?”

  “Silver, dude, like that Long Ranger’s horse.”

  Can the kid be that thick? “The Lone Ranger’s horse was white,” Service said. “Are you sure the truck wasn’t black or white or blue or something?”

  “I tolt you, dude. Silver truck, red words, like blood.”

  “What’s Paint’s actual name?” Service asked.

  “Angevin.”

  “How do you spell that?”

  “P-a-i-n-t,” the boy said. “Paint, like you puts on a brush.”

  “A-n-g-e-v-i-n,” the senior Zyzwyzcky said. “Thaddeus cannot read well and can’t spell a lick. He was always too cool for school. His jock creds carried him.”

  “But Eastern Michigan took him,” Service said.

  “Only for a lousy month. Being a jock there didn’t trump ignorant.”

 
“Where’s Angevin live?” Service asked the son.

  “He moves around.”

  “How do you guys get together if he moves around?”

  “Cell phone.”

  “We want his number.”

  “He don’t got one, got borrow phone. He always call me. I don’t never call him.”

  “Got his own wheels?”

  “No wheels, no number.”

  “And no home,” Service said, “and he calls you.”

  Big Zyzwyzcky was back on his feet, albeit a tad unsteadily. “You see where this strong-arm stuff leads you—or worse?”

  “Just some fun, Dad, no biggie.”

  Big Z looked at Service. “Does he need a lawyer?”

  “No, we just want information. Mr. Allerdyce does not wish to file charges, do you, Mr. Allerdyce?”

  The old man was glaring at the kid, and Service said, “Limpy?”

  Limpy shook his head and grinned.

  The older Zyzwyzcky began to chuckle, which turned into a laugh and then into a howl and uncontrolled laughter as he shook his finger at the old poacher. When he recovered his breath, he managed, “Limpy Allerdyce, that Allerdyce?

  “One and only,” Service said.

  “Damn, boy,” Zyzwyzcky said to his son, “Did this woman tell you this man’s name?”

  The boy shook his head, said, “She just say he a worthless old bum.”

  The father said, “You and Angevin are damn lucky you’re not dead and carved up for wolf-bait.”

  The boy struggled to his feet, looked at Limpy. “From that . . .”

  Allercyce took a step forward, said, “Go ’head boy, say it.”

  Zyzwyzcky covered his groin and moaned.

  His father said, “We’re sorry, Mr. Allerdyce.”

  Limpy said, “Had me dumbass kid, too, you. Not our fault.”

  The son said, “Paint lives with his auntie in the Sault, and he’s in Beaudoin’s almost every night.”

  “Druggie?”

  “No drugs, he don’t even smoke.”

  Service backed the truck out to the highway, trying to think.

  What had happened back at the house left his stomach sour. Silver truck with red writing. This has to be the Drazel Sisters again, but where do Bozian and Kalleskevich fit? If at all? We’ve got some direction now, faint, but at least something to trace. The Zyzwyzcky kid had gone bad and left his father mired in frustration. He put himself in Big Z’s shoes. He had known his own son only briefly before he’d been murdered along with Maridly Nantz. The Zyzwyzcky boy had gone to Eastern to wrestle, play college football, and get an education. Everything must have been looking rosy and a month later he was unceremoniously out on his ass, his future shifted from bright to none, all the sunshine gone from the sky. Luck, Karma, predestination, whatever it was that guided such things, it shit on humans with little regard for anything but its own unspoken, unknown ends, whatever the fuck those were. Big Z and Thad: He felt bad for them, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do for them. If the kid couldn’t read very well, he was as good as dead.

  Allerdyce complained from the back seat, “I never got me no vodka.”

  Chapter 20

  Brevort

  Mackinac County

  Fellow Marthesdottir telephoned as they were approaching Brevort, a village high above the north shore of Lake Michigan. Service told her he’d call her back and wheeled into Gustafson’s to park.

  Limpy opened the back door and said, “I go get us smoke-fishy.”

  Treebone also got out and said, “I’d better go with you and make sure you don’t bring back no nasty waterskunk.”

  Allerdyce retorted, “Lake trout good, not no skunk fish, what wrong wit’ youse De Twat boys?”

  Treebone and the old poacher went off together like the oldest and dearest of friends. It had not always been so. Back when Allerdyce had been released from prison, Treebone had gone with Service and some Marquette County deputies to make sure the newly minted con knew he’d better be on good behavior. Service felt pretty sure the incorrigible poacher was too old to change his ways and fully expected to find parole violations on Limpy’s first night out of the can.

  Allerdyce’s feral clan lived in a remote compound in extreme southwest Marquette County, and the law crowd had found the conditions they had expected—guns everywhere, booze, drugs, and stoked naked savages dancing in front of bonfires, shrieking like banshees.

  They found Limpy in his rocking chair, looking mildly amused by the goings-on, and when Treebone hove into view the old man growled at Service, “Youse brung a nigger here to my home?”

  Treebone had stepped forward and said, “This nigger’s glad to make your acquaintance.”

  Later, after the old man was cuffed, he had looked up at Service and asked him, “Take you a nigger and a bloody army to get an old fart like me?”

  Now look at the two of them: asshole buddies, a reminder that time had a way of scrambling what once seemed absolute.

  Marthesdottir said, “There’s been a lot of activity out in the Mosquito.”

  “It’s a big area,” he said. “Where exactly?”

  “Stafinski’s fox farm.”

  He laughed. “That’s a myth.” Old-timers insisted that a former copper prospector or logger, the stories all varied, had grown weary of life in the Copper Country and relocated to what was now the Mosquito Wilderness, where he bought hundreds of acres, built a cabin, and established a fox farm to meet big city pelt needs. Fox furs at the time were a big fashion among certain city women from Chicago to New York. At some point in time—and nobody knew when or how—the so-called Stafinski land had passed into the hands of the state, which had either bought it, or taken it for back taxes. When the wilderness was declared officially in 1987, the alleged fox farmland became part of the much larger wildland. The thing was, nobody could ever find any public record of anyone named Stafinski ever owning anything either in or near what was now the wilderness. The fox farm was considered to be a specious story.

  “There’s evidence,” Marthesdottir said, and she gave him the relevant section numbers. He ran them through his mind, in which he had long ago memorized the topography of the entire wilderness. “That’s all black spruce and swamp down that way,” he told her. “No place to build a cabin, not a piece of solid ground anywhere near there. I don’t know what your source is, but I think it’s worthless.”

  She said, “I have a 1925 plat book and it says W. Stafinski on it.”

  “How much land?”

  “Four eighties at the corners of four sections.”

  He could think of only one place where such a picture might apply, and there was some high ground for sure, and the Mosquito itself, and some caves, not to mention the diamonds he’d found and hidden years back. The diamonds were just off one edge of the so-called Stafinski land. So maybe it wasn’t a myth after all? He shook his head. How can you live all your life in certainty that you know all there is to know about your little corner of the world and then you find out you’re wrong? And now it makes you wonder if there’s more you don’t know. “How’d you end up with a 1925 plat book?” he asked her.

  “To go deep and narrow in any research project you usually have to go as wide as you can to begin. A net cast wide catches the most fish. I was trying to get a better picture of the full dimensions of the wilderness, the dimensions, topography, hydrology, all that good stuff. Besides, what girl doesn’t love paper maps?”

  He loved maps too. “Is there any way for you to run down more information on this W. Stafinski character?” Might as well dispel or verify the myth, uncover the real history.

  “Possibly,” she said. “There are a lot of sources to comb through. Fact is that this has me interested too. And by the way, I had a chat with M. She thinks Allerdyce is a dish.”

  “A dish of wh
at, moose doots? Good god, Fellow, that woman’s ninety years old.”

  “You bloody ageist! Even when we get too old to play any longer, we can still remember. At your age, it might do you well to remember that. Besides, I told her to keep her mitts off my man.”

  He found no words for this. Allerdyce is Marthesdottir’s man. Wonder if he knows that? “Good god, Fellow.”

  She laughed. “Affairs of the heart, Grady, affairs of the heart.”

  “I follow, Fellow.” God, women. Sometimes Tuesday’s logic made his head ache, and Maridly Nantz had positively made his head spin with some of her thinking about . . . everything.

  “How do you think cougars came to be?” the woman asked.

  This bizarre aside pushed W. Stafinski aside for the moment. “What is it about Allerdyce that attracts women?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “If I knew I wouldn’t have asked.”

  “BBQ,” she said.

  “Barbecue?”

  “No, Bad Boy Quotient, B-B-Q, which surely you know about. You’ve never heard a lady ask why it feels so good to be bad?”

  “Not in so many words,” he said. Maybe sometimes, he thought.

  “Exact words don’t matter, it’s the sentiment. Sometimes a lady needs to be less than a lady, which then makes her more of an independent woman. Most people live their whole lives between the lines either because they can’t see outside the lines, or most likely, they’re afraid to go too far out because they might not make it back, or get caught. Or worse, might like it so much they don’t want to go back, ever.”

  Enough. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  She laughed in his ear. “I do sense a desperate need for control over there in Brevort. You need to loosen up, Detective.”

  He’d been hearing this control thing his whole life, and he had rejected it as fatalist thinking on the part of some people, over-control on the part of others, or some stupid, petty motive he’d never been able to pinpoint, much less understand. Almost every damn fool alive knows you can’t control everything. But he’d read some Chinese guy who’d said, “Misfortune comes from the little crap, from cumulative error, and it was the little shit you could control.”