by David Levien
Kenny’s eyes went serious. He nodded and walked back to the Durango.
Behr left Donohue’s and was headed home when his car seemed to develop a mind of its own and he found himself parked in front of the building on Schultz Park. He went to the door and buzzed but got no answer. He had turned and was walking back to his car when an early ’90s silver Honda Accord rolled down the street and parked. A tall, black-haired woman got out and started for the building. Behr felt himself hitch and process something unconscious. He slowed his step as he reached his car, turned and moved quietly back for the door. She was putting her key in the lock when he spoke.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said, noticing her shoulders jerk upward in surprise. “I think…” He let her face him before he said more, and when she did, he was struck by her beauty. Her skin was creamy and mocha colored, her lips full, her eyes dark. “Flavia Inez, right? My name is Frank Behr,” he said.
“Frank Behr?” she asked.
“I’m a private investigator. I left you messages regarding Aurelio Santos,” he said, flat and sure, leaving her no room to maneuver. She processed it quickly and nodded.
“Yes, of course.” There was the slightest of Latin accents under her words. “Would you like to come in?”
I found the girlfriend, Behr thought.
Her apartment was dark, and when she flipped the switch it was still mostly dark, because all the lights were on dimmers. There was a faint whiff of sandalwood incense in the air. A large piece of batik fabric functioning as a shade flapped in the slight breeze coming through an open window. There was a white slipcovered couch and chair that appeared to have come in a set, and a dark wood coffee table covered with crystal figurines of dolphins. The kitchen was new-a stainless steel fridge and range, granite countertops and cherrywood cabinets. Even if it was a rental, the place cost some money.
“So you heard what happened to Aurelio?” Behr said as she tossed her keys on the counter.
“I did. How terrible,” she said plainly. “Would you like some water?”
“No thanks,” Behr answered. “How come you weren’t at the memorial?”
“I couldn’t make it. I really wanted to, but I had an appointment.”
“I see,” Behr said, wondering at the cool temperature of her voice.
“He was such a nice guy…,” she said, as if recalling a grade-school friend she hadn’t seen for years.
“You were his girlfriend…?” Behr half asked.
“Me? No.”
“No?” There was a moment of silence as she shook her head. Her smooth hair shushed over her shoulders when she did. Behr forced his eyes from her and glanced at some framed photos on a shelf. He saw none of Aurelio. There were shots of Flavia out with girlfriends, and others of an older couple-her parents it seemed-and one of an even older couple, likely her grandparents.
“He was a good-looking guy, but I just got out of something and wanted a break.”
Behr thought of Ezra’s condition back at her prior building. “I think your ex roughed up your old building manager.”
“Ezra?” she said, concerned, her hand coming to her mouth. “Is he all right?”
“A little banged up, but okay.”
She pouted over it for a moment and then moved on. “He told you where to find me?”
“Let’s just leave it at I found you,” Behr said. “How’d you know Aurelio?”
“He was my teacher.”
“He was teaching you jiu-jitsu?” Behr asked. She didn’t seem the type. But that was the thing about martial arts, especially a grappling style; it brought in all kinds. “I never saw you at the school. What class did you usually take?”
“I was taking private lessons. I don’t like to go to classes in a group. I learn better on my own,” she said, and Behr felt himself nodding in agreement.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” he said.
“I’ve been doing pretty well lately.”
“What do you do? You don’t mind my asking…”
“I’m a hairstylist,” she said.
“Must have some good clients.” He did his best to sound light.
“Yeah, a lot pay in cash. Don’t tell the government on me.” She hit him with a mischievous smile.
“I won’t,” he said. He found it difficult to imagine anyone acting against her wishes. But even she had managed to find some son of a bitch who had caused her to run for it and cover her tracks when she went. “So how did you meet him, by the way?”
She made a scissor-cutting motion with her fingers. “Of course,” Behr said. “When was this?”
“A couple, three months back,” she said, and then she unzipped and peeled off her sweatshirt down to a tight-fitting tank top that revealed her inviting figure. She carried an extra five pounds down by her hips where her velour pants sat. Somehow the extra weight suited her though, and the color of the thong panties that rode up at her lower back made Behr think of mangoes before he realized his mind had wandered.
“He came into your shop?” Behr asked, racking his brain for any recollection of Aurelio sporting a memorable haircut. How good a job would she really have to do to keep you coming back? Behr thought to himself.
“I’ve been between places for a while,” she smiled. “It was a referral. It must’ve been.”
“Who?” Behr asked, not pleased at all by the bald interrogatories he was tossing around.
Her shoulders went up and down in an I don’t know, and she yawned in a way that made Behr feel old and lame for concerning himself with such trivialities. “Mr…?”
“Behr,” he said. “Call me Frank.”
“Frank. I’m tired, can we…”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll get out of here,” he said, heading for the door, then pausing. “So, nothing between you and Aurelio?”
“We joked about going out after all the rolling around on the mat. It didn’t happen. Like I said.”
“Right. Your ex.”
“Yeah. Never happen now.” A slight shadow of sadness passed over her eyes, and Behr found himself on the other side of the door. “I don’t know if you write reports or who else you’ll be talking to, but could you leave my name and address out? I’m in a place in my life where I just want to be under the radar, you know?”
That ex must be some peach, Behr thought, then nodded. “Okay, shouldn’t be a problem,” he said.
“Give me a call if you want a haircut.” She treated him to a last, heavy-lidded smile.
“I will,” he said, and the door closed.
• • •
They went in through the front door, loaded. Terry was first, then Knute, Charlie, and Kenny. Dean was already inside. The dude running the place didn’t know him, so he’d slipped in as a player. Deanie was to spread fifty dollars, and when the shake was over and the other players were leaving, go into the bathroom. When it sounded quiet, he was to emerge and unlock the front door for them. They had seen the people exiting the house and the cars starting to leave the street. When everyone had gone, they pulled in close, pointing their vehicles east, the direction they wanted to go when it was done, and left them running. Then they went around back of the Durango and armed up. Kenny took his pipe, and Knute the bat. Charlie had his gun and offered the flashlight to Terry, who passed on it and instead chose a machete that had been sharpened on a grinder at the shop and had duct tape wrapped around the handle until it was as comfortable to hold as a tennis racquet. Then they went single file toward the house.
As they reached the door they heard the muffled pop from a small-caliber handgun from inside.
“Is your brother carrying a piece?” Terry asked, moving quickly.
“Uh-uh,” Charlie said.
Terry tried the knob. It turned and the door swung open. Deanie had done his job. They stepped inside to see him wrestling with the little spic pea shaker, numbered plastic balls rolling all over the floor around them.
Terry crossed the living room in two steps and grabbed t
he Latin man by the hair, wrenching his head back.
“He’s got a gun,” Dean yelled when he saw them.
“Are you shot?” Terry asked.
“No,” Dean grunted. Terry saw that Dean had both hands locked around the Latin man’s wrist, immobilizing a piece of shit silver. 32. Terry hit the man in the side of the head with the butt of the machete and wrenched the gun out of his hand.
“You little fucking asshole,” Terry seethed. He stepped down on the man’s back with most of his weight, pinning him to the floor and allowing Dean to get up. “Good job, Deanie,” Terry said.
“Fuckin’-A, bro,” Charlie said.
Dean climbed to his feet, a little shocked, and rubbed the powder burn on the underside of his wrist. “Shit,” he said.
They all grabbed a part of the pea shaker-his arms, his legs, his neck-and gang carried him toward the back bedroom.
How have things gone so malo for the Nogeros so quickly? Hector wondered, fear surging through him like a current. He’d been in the hospital all day with Chaco, sitting beside the bed of his father, who lay in a coma, then he’d bought the gun in the alley behind a criolla restaurant, and when he’d returned for the evening shake and found Austin was a no-show, he had no time to replace him. So when the tall, shaggy-haired man he’d never seen before showed up, there was little he could do to stop it, short of pulling his new gun and clearing the house. Instead, he’d let him in to play, taken the fifty-dollar bill, and set up the shake. Hector was doing it all on his own now, since the girl also hadn’t come back after the attack. When the drawing and the payouts were finished, all the players started to leave, and he’d lost track of the new man. Then, when the house had gone quiet, Hector saw him emerge from the bathroom and move toward the front door. Instead of leaving, the man turned the lock.
“What the hell?” Hector said, wasting no time in pulling his new gun.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the new man said, raising his hands. “I was just taking a piss…”
But when Hector came close, to throw him out and lock the door behind him, the new man lunged at him and tackled him to the ground. Hector managed to fire a shot, but it must’ve gone into the floor because the new man didn’t lose strength. In fact, he was strong as a bull, Hector realized with dismay. Then he heard footsteps and voices inside the house and felt the blow to his head. Hector saw the ceiling rush by as he was carried down the hall, before his vision went black and blurry from what he knew must be blood running into his eyes.
Hector felt himself tossed down onto the sheetless bed and managed to get a hand loose. He wiped his eyes to see them. He recognized three of them from the last time. And there was another man, older than the rest, but resembling them-the father he felt-leaning over him. He thought of Chaco and knew his boy would be hiding in his cabinet in the den. The thought gave him the force to fight, and he ripped a foot loose, kicking up into the face of the youngest. The young man barely flinched.
“Cocksucker,” he said, and spit down on Hector.
“All right, hold him,” the father said, the cords in his neck standing out like high-voltage wires, and Hector felt himself held still. The air went thick with the finality of it, even before it happened.
“No,” Hector said. Then he felt his head jerked back by the hair and his throat exposed. He saw the father loom over him and raise a machete, his black eyes devoid of light. Chaco, flashed through Hector’s mind, Papa. The blade came down toward him.
TWENTY-TWO
It was a night of cataclysmic mash-ups for DJ M.D. “Crazy Train” and “99 Problems” were joined in a mad creation that had the dance floor packed. Then the Schlegels and Knute came in, and their corner of the bar cleared without a word. They all sat and Pam served them Jameson poured to the top of rocks glasses with no rocks, and beers back. Dean said something to her, and Doc saw her use the speed gun to soak a bar towel with water, wring it out, and hand it to him. None of them spoke to one another. They just drank and stared at themselves in the mirror, although their gazes were fixed on the far beyond. Doc’s tracks ended and he switched up to “Black Dog” mashed with “One Time 4 Your Mind,” from Illmatic and kicked it to top volume.
The sound didn’t touch them. The Schlegels were in some kind of bubble. And it didn’t help Doc escape those faces either. Newt looked grim, almost like he was in pain, Charlie appeared pissed off. Terry wore a flat stare that was all business. Kenny’s mouth curled up at the edges. And Dean, with the wet bar rag wrapped around his wrist, he looked like he might cry. Something about them all there in a row made Doc stay as far away as he could without attracting attention to himself. When the songs ended, Doc put a mix CD in the house system and packed out his gear the minute he felt he could get away with it.
TWENTY-THREE
When Behr opened his door Monday morning there was a green folder waiting for him next to his daily paper. The paper’s lead story read, “City Inspector Discovers Pair of Bodies on Everly.” It was just as Pomeroy and his attorney had previewed. There was an account of an inspector who entered an abandoned house near the fairgrounds and discovered the bodies of two forty-year-old Hispanic males. Dead and decomposing, they were thought to be brothers or cousins, by the name of Restrapo. No one knew how they had come to be there or why. Vermin, including rats, had overrun the house, and the bodies appeared to have been there for at least several weeks. One man had been beaten, the other stabbed to death-but that was only speculation, as the rats had gotten at them. It didn’t sound pretty.
The article was tight and well written and Behr noticed the byline belonged to Neil Ratay, the reporter he’d met out at Lake Monroe. Behr thought of Ratay at the crime scene, his experienced eyes knowing and fixed as he took down the particulars in his notebook before going outside for a smoke. Behr wondered if it was right then and there that Pomeroy, or someone else on the force, got him to leave a few details out.
It was no day on the lake, that was for sure, Behr thought. Then his mind drifted to Susan, not out at the lake, but for some reason in the shower one morning, rinsing shampoo out of her hair while he stood at the sink and shaved-their usual routine. It had only been thirty-six hours since he’d seen her last, and he’d almost called her a dozen times, but they seemed a great distance apart. He pictured her face through the steam, her chin tipped up, her eyes closed to the water in an expression of purity. The image hurt him in a place deep in his core.
He shook it off by browsing the contents of the folder. It was a photocopy of Aurelio’s case file. The news, such as it was, was bad. No legitimate prints had been developed at the academy. The department’s witness canvass had come up as blank as his own. There was a bland, uninformative interview with the bread truck driver. He didn’t need a call from Jean Gannon either, as no tramline fractures came up in the medical; Aurelio hadn’t been hit with a shotgun barrel. There was a blood alcohol level of. 01 and the food in his stomach had been from the night before, which led Behr to believe Aurelio hadn’t arrived at the academy in the morning after a night’s sleep and his customary light breakfast of fruit but had come there or been brought there at some point during the night before. The police had collected Aurelio’s cell phone from the family at the house and accessed the records. There was no activity after nine o’clock the night before. There was a thick sheaf of papers detailing past calls that Behr would have to go over in detail.
He closed the folder and set it on the passenger seat, putting aside his thoughts on the matter for the moment. He had to. Earlier in the morning he’d run backgrounds on Ken Bigby and Derek Schmidt. Both men were in their early forties, neither was currently married, though Schmidt had been at one time, which must have suited the Caro bosses when they assigned the case. Bigby had been Philadelphia PD, right out of high school, and had gotten his twenty by the time he was thirty-eight years old. He took his detective’s shield and his full pension and went to work at Caro. Schmidt was from Virginia, the Falls Church area. He did college at University o
f Maryland, combined criminology and law degrees in six years, and joined the Bureau. He spent twelve years in various East Coast field offices, including New York and Boston, specializing in forensic accounting and tracking the ill-gotten gains of drug dealers, smugglers, and counterfeiters, before ending in Philly and making the jump to Caro. Both were members in good standing of the World Association of Detectives, and both were currently nowhere to be found. This fact was confirmed over the phone by the manager of the Valu-Stay Suites, where neither man had been seen in or around his studio sleeper unit for the past four or five days. Behr would need to check their accommodations in person, and it was something he should do right away. After the background on the men, he’d also gone on to run the properties on the list that Pomeroy had given him. That didn’t turn up much besides nondescript owners’ names-White, Fletcher, Menefee, Bustamante, Skillman, Minchin-and dodgy tax lien situations. What he really needed to do in order to pursue the Caro case properly was to go out and recon the properties in person. Instead, he put the car in gear and shot back out to Muncie.
Behr nosed his car over to the side of a driveway in front of the large, well-kept clapboard house that had come up on his database search. It was Francovic’s home address. Fighting had been good to the man, that much was clear. The house was probably six thousand square feet, undoubtedly featuring one of those finished basements with screening room, video games, and poker table. There was a three-car garage, an outbuilding that had once been a barn but now looked like it had been converted into a guest or caretaker’s cottage, and his land-fifty acres according to the county database-spread out past green fields to a distant tree line. He could see the edge of an in-ground swimming pool poking around the side of the house. Behr shifted in his seat feeling the handle of his Bulldog. 44, the one that Pomeroy recommended he keep handy, press into his kidney from where it sat, snug in its Don Hume DAH small-of-the-back holster. He opened the window and listened closely for the sound of dogs, which often roamed properties like this one. If there were any, they weren’t around at the moment. At least he couldn’t hear them. He got out of the car and trod carefully toward the front door.