by Dan Ames
“No, you can’t,” Ellen said.
See what I mean? I cursed myself for ignoring myself.
“I told you what I was doing,” I said. Another mistake. Don’t defend yourself. Just curl up and let the grizzly bat you around a little bit—eventually she’ll get bored and move on.
“You told me you were going to be involved in a double homicide while investigating the homicide I’m working on?” she said. Boy, her voice could sound nasty. It was hard to believe we were related. I guess I got all the sugar, she got all the vinegar. I’d have to get confirmation on that from Mom.
“Do I look like Dionne Warwick?” I said.
She shot me a confused glance.
“Psychic Network?” I said.
This got me an eye roll. Eye rolls aren’t bad. In fact, they’re quite good. It usually means the anger-bordering-on-violence has passed, replaced with a mere case of irritation. A mild nuisance.
Ellen turned onto Kercheval, headed back toward the Park. It was early evening by now, and traffic was light.
“Where was the call to let me know you were going to question Hornsby?”
“Again,” I said, “how was I supposed to know anything would come of it—”
“You’re going to back off of this case,” she said. I knew where that expression “iron in her voice” came from. She practically had a crowbar between her teeth.
I didn’t answer, suddenly terribly interested in the architecture of the houses we passed. After a couple more blocks, Ellen turned onto my street.
“Aren’t you, John?” she said.
“Aren’t I what?”
“Going to back off this case this minute.”
I didn’t want to answer. I’d made enough mistakes. I wasn’t about to make the granddaddy mistake of all by lying to her. Because I had no intention of backing off this case. In fact, my intention was just the opposite.
“Right?” Ellen asked, not letting me off the hook as we pulled into my driveway.
I imagined a newborn baby, the very picture of innocence. “Right,” I said. What the hell, three mistakes in a row. Pulled a hat trick myself.
•
Before I got out of the cruiser, I glanced in the little mirror attached to the back of the sun visor. I looked okay, considering what I’d been through. Pale, water-logged, and truth be told, a tad frightened.
“Does she know?” I said, nodding toward the house. My cell phone was on the bottom of Lake St. Clair, and I hadn’t called from the hospital, preferring to tell my wife about my unique day in person.
“I didn’t tell her,” my sister said.
“Good. Your tact typically leaves quite a bit to be desired.”
“Quit stalling,” Ellen said. “Go on, take it like the man you aren’t.”
I got out, slammed the door shut as a response, and walked around the house to the back door. In my mind, I ran through a series of explanations, deciding that I’d already lied to my sister, but lying to my wife would be even worse. No way was I going to lie. I might sanitize the truth a tad, but no more outright lies. Besides, I’d tried a fib or two to Anna before—no, I hadn’t eaten the last two chocolate chip cookies, etc.—and I always got busted. The woman was a walking polygraph machine.
I unlocked the back door, which opens into the kitchen, and Anna was at the kitchen table, helping Isabel with her homework. She looked at me then did a double take.
“Everyone’s favorite man is home!” I sang out, my voice as merry as an elf on Christmas Eve.
I saw the cold fury in my wife’s eyes and I knew it was game over. “Isabel, go upstairs,” Anna said. “Finish your math sheet in your room.”
After my daughter left—without a hug for her Dad, I might add—Anna folded her arms, waiting.
I began describing what happened, editing out the worst moments. I was only about halfway through the story when Anna started crying, and I immediately started feeling guilty. The girls ran down from upstairs upon hearing the sound of a grownup crying.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Isabel said, her lower lip immediately starting to tremble.
Anna was trying to get herself under control but failing miserably. I idly wondered when I would get my framed certificate proving once and for all that I was, in fact, the world’s biggest jackass.
I decided to divide and conquer. Leaving Anna in the kitchen, I took the girls upstairs, immediately distracting them with a game of tackle and tickle, then we read some books and I tucked them in for the night.
I went back downstairs and found Anna drinking. Turning to booze was always a bad sign. But a small glass of Amaretto wasn’t a bad thing. I splashed a cocktail glass half full.
“Finish the story,” she said as I sat down on the couch next to her.
I told the rest of it to Anna, glossing over the part where I’d almost been blown to a million pieces of man gnocchi and minimizing how close I’d come to drowning. I told her exactly what the doctors had said, embellishing only on the soundness of my overall health. Still, she was pissed. Whenever she got upset, she cried first then got pissed right after that. Super pissed, in fact.
“Why didn’t you take your sister with you?” she said. You have to understand, she was mad, but she wasn’t mad at the guy who tried to kill me. She was mad at me.
“She’s a cop, honey,” I said. “She can’t just take off with her brother when he’s got a case. Besides, I had no idea this was going to happen. I thought it would be a routine interview. As boring as those Barbara Walters specials. Do you remember the one with Bo Derek? God that was—”
“What about Nate? Why didn’t you take him?”
“Nate?” I said. “Well, he’s best in culinary emergencies . . . you know, when you can’t decide whether to have the roast duck or the broiled flounder.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“I know.” It wasn’t. The part about Nate was a little bit funny, but no, the rest was definitely not.
“So what are you going to do?” she said.
“I’m going to keep working,” I said. She nodded. Anna now knew the details of the case, was caught up in it nearly as much as I was, and she probably didn’t want me to stop.
“I just want you to be more careful. Call Ellen if you think you’re going to be in any kind of danger, all right?”
“All right.”
“Because you know, you’re not a tough guy. You’re no Russell Crowe.”
I took that one in stride. “Very true. Very true.”
All in all, I thought it had gone pretty well. Anna didn’t seem too unhappy. I was safe. I would be more careful. I would get to the bottom of all this, and it would be a good case to solve.
Things were going to be okay.
17
Muddy’s Saloon is a blues bar just a stone’s throw from the Detroit River. All of the greats have played there, leaving behind them the wail of a blues shout and a framed, signed picture.
The Spook stood in the lobby and looked at the pictures. John Lee Hooker, young and handsome with a sharp-looking felt hat and thick, black sunglasses. Elmore James with his lean face and hawk nose. B.B. King and Lucille. Howlin’ Wolf. And Muddy himself.
The Spook walked through the doorway to the right of the bar to the small room in back with the stage. It had a small wooden platform with a dozen tables scattered around in front. Thick cigarette smoke filled the air, and the wood floor breathed with the smell of thirty years worth of spilled beer.
The stage itself was only up a step or two, and it had a piano in one corner, a big mahogany upright that probably weighed a ton or two. There were two microphones at the front, and an old wooden stool sat in the middle.
The Spook had been to Detroit before. Quite a few times, in fact. After leaving the Agency and going freelance, some of his first jobs had been right here. There always seemed to be a lot of open contracts in Detroit.
In fact, it was on one of his first jobs that he’d heard about open mic night at Muddy’s Sa
loon. Back then, though, he’d been too busy to attend. Tonight was different. His job hadn’t officially started yet, which gave him a rare night off. He’d brought his guitar and was ready to play.
Half of the tables were occupied, mostly by other players, although the Spook noticed one table with a man and a woman sharing a pitcher of Heineken.
A man was on stage playing a serviceable Taj Mahal tune. His accompaniment was simple, his voice good if a bit tentative. The Spook took a seat and ordered a beer. He would hardly touch it.
Two songs later, the man on stage hit the last note of a Howlin’ Wolf song and quietly put away his guitar and left the stage. The Master of Ceremonies, a big, pudgy white guy with a fedora and black shirt, asked the audience who would like to play next.
The Spook immediately stood and headed for the stage.
“All right! We got an eager one!” the MC said.
The Spook slid the Martin guitar from its case and tuned by ear. He slid into the “Midnight Rambler” shuffle, and everything felt good. Felt tight.
“Have you heard about the Midnight Rambler?” he sang. His voice wasn’t great. He had more of a growl than a true singing voice, but it was his playing that he was most proud of anyway. He played, his rhythm line aggressive and precise.
His intense concentration was broken slightly by something on the periphery of his awareness. He heard the man at the table with the woman snicker softly.
The Spook ignored him, turned back into himself and sang, “The one you never seen before.” His foot tapped the oak floor, and the Martin bounced on his thigh. He rocked through the song, feeling strong and confident. When he finished muted applause broke out.
And then the man at the table spoke. Not real loud, but loud enough for most of the people in the room to hear. “Pick a key and stick with it, man!” A little bit of soft laughter broke out.
The Spook ignored him, and did two more numbers: “The Spider and the Fly,” and “Love in Vain.”
When he stepped down from the stage, the man at the table who’d heckled him earlier clapped especially loud.
The Spook sat back down at his table. He quietly put the Martin back into its case and wrapped his fingers around his beer, but didn’t take a drink.
He watched as an obese woman with a jumbo acoustic played a haunting version of a Son House song. Her guitar playing was basic, but her voice was beautiful. The man at the table who’d heckled the Spook was ignoring her, concentrating on the woman at the table with him. The Spook studied the man. He had on a white shirt and tie, slicked back hair, and glasses. He looked like an accountant. Something shifted inside the Spook’s stomach. For the first time, he took a sip of beer.
The heckler ordered another pitcher of beer from the waitress and then excused himself from the table. The Spook waited while the man passed by the table and out the door to the bathroom.
After a moment, the Spook picked up his guitar case and followed. He leaned his case against the jukebox just outside the door to the bar and went to the men’s room. He stepped inside, shut the door, and stood with his back against it as he slid the Ruger automatic out of his jacket’s inside pocket. He lifted the silencer from the other jacket pocket and quickly screwed it onto the end of the pistol. There was only one stall in the bathroom and no urinal. The Spook listened to the man finish up. The stall door swung open, and the accountant appeared. He looked up at the Spook, then away, then back again. An O formed on his mouth as he saw the gun. He started to raise his hands.
The Spook shot him twice in the face.
The man fell back into the stall. The Spook stepped in, placed the barrel of the gun against the man’s skull, and fired once more. He then slipped the gun back into his pocket, hoisted the dead man onto the toilet, and shut the stall door.
From the doorway, it looked like just another guy taking a crap.
The Spook walked back to the door, picked up his guitar case, and stepped outside. As the door swung shut, he heard the faint voice of the obese woman singing, “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out . . .”
Ain’t that the truth, he thought.
18
I attended a seminar once. It was hosted by a private investigator, and believe me, I know a write-off when I see it. Anyway, the seminar was put on by a woman from Los Angeles who claimed to work for celebrities and had, at least according to herself, been involved with some extremely big, high-profile cases. I suppose when an actress insures her left ass cheek for five million dollars, they probably hire a lot of security personnel.
I ponied up the three hundred bucks for an afternoon of learning the tricks of the trade from one of the self-proclaimed experts in my field. Personally, I thought the woman was worthy of investigation herself, but I could be rather skeptical. And as a con, wouldn’t it be a hoot to pull the wool over the eyes of a room full of wannabe private investigators? Reference check, anyone?
Anyway, I remembered laughing out loud at one of her points. She had quizzed the audience about what abilities we felt were the most important for a PI to possess. The crowd threw out self-delusional concepts such as courage, tenacity, and perceptiveness.
It turned out the correct answer was the ability to listen.
I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. It just sounded so New Age to me. I mean, I understood her point and all, but I just pictured myself in my office, acting like Bob Newhart. A client tells me his wife is cheating on him and I say, “Go with that. How does that make you feel? I’m listening, friend.”
Listening? Come on. I would have guessed the most important ability was to be able to photograph both faces of two people fucking.
Of course, like so many things in life, over time the concept kind of grew on me. The more cases I had, the more times I realized that something I’d heard ended up playing a pretty big role in the case. So maybe the afternoon had been worth a little more than a sore ass and a few glasses of watered-down Coke.
I thought of the seminar when I realized that something Nevada Hornsby had said to me, that really hadn’t registered then, was now simmering on my brain. At the time, I hadn’t really been listening. But now, I knew I had. Because he had told me something important.
It was just before he slammed the boat into gear. He’d said something about we’d be out there for eighteen hours and that I would have to work because someone had called in sick. Now I searched my brain for the name. Had he said a name? I thought about it, cursing that hotshot from L.A. I never should have laughed at her. Karma.
Rudy.
No, that didn’t sound right. But it had definitely started with an R. I was sure of that.
Ralphie.
Rodney.
Randy.
Randy.
That was it.
Randy had called in sick the day the boat blew up and everyone but a scared PI died. I’d always been wary of coincidences and that was just too glaring for me to take in stride. Maybe I’d host a seminar one day and make that my big point.
Fortunately, during my questioning with the good police officers of St. Clair Shores, this particular memory had yet to surface. Somehow, now that I’d had some time to recover from the initial shock, it just popped right up. I’d even been with my sister and still hadn’t remembered it then either. Coincidence or had some small part of me repressed the idea until I could act on it alone?
Go figure.
Since I had failed to remember this little detail during my official questioning, it didn’t seem like a terribly significant slighting of protocol if I were to look into this Randy angle by myself.
I may not be the best listener in the world, but I am one hell of a rationalizer.
•
My first challenge was to find out just who this Randy guy really was and where I might be able to find him.
I pulled up across the street from St. Clair Salvage. I didn’t feel any post-traumatic stress from my near brush with death, but I wasn’t exactly doing cartwheels over being back. And having
finished going through Jesse Barre’s workshop and apartment, I wasn’t thrilled at being back at another murder victim’s place of work. Again, I wasn’t the most sensitive guy in the world, but this case was really starting to get to me.
In the gray light of early morning, with a fog rolling in from the lake, the bright yellow police tape over the front door of St. Clair Salvage made the message pretty clear. Everyone stay away. Especially nosy private investigators.
In the old days, I suppose a ballsy investigator might pick a lock or slip through an old window into Hornsby’s office and check his employee records. But I had a couple problems with this. One, I wasn’t anxious to break any laws. The guys at Jackson State Prison just a half hour away would love my soft white ass. It’d be like chucking a Krispy Kreme donut into an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.
Second of all, and not quite as anally intrusive, I figured Nevada Hornsby’s records were about as neat and organized as a frat house after Rush Week. In fact, I highly doubted that Hornsby kept any employee records at all. No W-2s, no problems from the IRS, right? I pictured him paying cash under the table, along with a few beers and a greasy burger at the café across the street.
The café across the street. It was a Ram’s Horn. I’d eaten once at a Ram’s Horn. Runny eggs, soggy hash browns, weak coffee. It was one big room with no dividers between the tables. The culinary equivalent of a pig’s trough to an uppity Grosse Pointer like myself, but nirvana perhaps to Hornsby and his crew.
I locked the Taurus, crossed the street, and went through the restaurant’s fingerprint-covered glass door. A cute, chubby waitress took my order of coffee with a pleasant little smile. She had a dimple and a nametag telling the world her name was Gloria. I sipped my coffee. It was weak, all right. Kind of like coffee-flavored water. When she returned to refill me, I ordered the Hungry Man Special, figuring she might be a little more cooperative if a slightly larger tip were at stake. Fifteen percent of a fifty-cent coffee wasn’t about to loosen her up.