Return to Fender

by Virginia Brown

  “And you’re not goin’ to,” said Zane. “I’ve had enough of this shit. We need to go somewhere more . . . private. If you know what I mean.”

  Harley knew what he meant. So did Jordan. His face bleached of all color, and he started saying things like they’d never get the money back if they killed him, to wait until he got the insurance money and they could have it all, and while he babbled and had their attention, she hauled off and kicked Zane the gorilla right between the legs as hard as she could.

  The results were immediate. He made a gurgling sound in his throat and dropped to his knees, both hands to his crotch. She took advantage of his momentary distraction to make a leap for freedom. She half-expected Harvey Fine to grab for her, but it was Rick Streeter who recovered first. He came after her, and she took off as fast as she could. He was faster. It wouldn’t take him long at all to catch her.

  Harley half-ran, half-dove for the steps of the Elvis statue. She scrambled up the base and slung one leg over the top of the protective railing, and that’s when alarms went off. Within a few minutes every cop in downtown Memphis would be at Elvis Presley Plaza.

  Then two things happened at once: Rick Streeter drew a gun and took aim at her, and Harvey Fine drew his pistol. They fired simultaneously. Harley screamed. That’s when English tourist Clive Harris entered the picture. He’d been coming to her aid and not seen the guns in time. Fortunately, he knocked Streeter down before he could hit her, and Harvey Fine’s bullet went wild at the last minute.

  Huddled on the statue steps with the alarms going off and police sirens screaming closer, Harley watched in bewilderment as Harvey Fine straddled Rick Streeter and put cuffs on him. Marty McCormack took off running, but Zane the gorilla could barely get off the ground. He kept making odd, retching sounds and finally just lay down again in a fetal position. Then Fine went over and cuffed him, too.

  Jordan just collapsed on the concrete, put his head between his knees, and breathed deeply. Clive Harris came over to Harley and asked if she was all right. She managed an affirmative nod but had no idea what was happening. It was as if she’d stepped into a parallel universe where nothing was as it should be. Incessant noise assaulted her ears, and her brain was beyond absorbing any of the unlikely events unfolding before her eyes.

  In a very few minutes a uniformed officer brought a sweating, panting Marty McCormack back to the plaza with his hands cuffed behind him. Thankfully the alarms had stopped and sirens were off. Flashing blue lights strobed the night. A block over on Beale Street someone played a saxophone. Harvey Fine stood talking to officers as if he had called them to the scene. None of it made sense.

  “What’s going on?” Clive Harris asked her, and Harley shrugged.

  “Beats me. Why are you here? I thought you and your wife were staying in the hotel tonight.”

  “Beth wanted to see the Elvis statue. Good thing we showed up when we did.”

  “A very good thing,” Harley agreed.

  Clive looked at the police for a moment, then up at the Elvis statue, then down at Harley where she sat on the bottom step. “If I didn’t know different, I’d think this was all a show for the telly.”

  “I’m not sure anyone would believe it.”

  From somewhere on the ground by the bushes, Tweety Bird said, “Help, help! Somebody save me! Heeeelp!” as her phone announced another call.

  One of the cops came out of the bushes, bent and picked it up with gloved fingers and said, “It’s a little too late for help, I think.”

  There wasn’t a whole lot she could say to argue with that, so Harley just nodded.

  After a moment Clive’s wife waved from the phalanx of police and cars, and he politely asked if there was anything Harley needed before he left. She shook her head.

  “I think saving my life just about oughta do it. Thanks.”

  He grinned. “Well, if ever in Croydon . . .”

  “Don’t look you up?”

  Clive laughed. “Something like that. Well, cheerio.”

  “And cherry-o to you too,” she replied with a smile.

  It still took Clive a few minutes of giving his statement before he could leave the area, and Harley watched wistfully as he and his lovely wife finally escaped the madness. It was too confusing. When had Harvey Fine changed sides? Or had he changed sides? He certainly wasn’t under arrest. The other men, including Jordan, had been cuffed and were in the back of patrol cars. Only Harley still sat at the scene without cuffs. That could change at any moment, of course. In fact, it was probably just about to change.

  Bobby Baroni came around the end of a patrol car and across the sidewalk to the statue. Instead of yelling at her, he sat down on the concrete step next to her. For a few minutes they sat in silence, just watching the scene as technicians put out markers and photographed shell casings on the ground.

  Finally Bobby said, “I’m glad you’re still alive.”

  “Yeah? Me, too.”

  He brushed imaginary lint off his slacks. “Are you going to keep doing things like this?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t try to plan too far ahead.”

  “Probably not.”

  After a moment she asked, “Am I going to jail?”

  “Do you think you should?”

  “Why are you answering a question with a question?”

  “I’m inquisitive. Damn, Harley. You came really close this time. If it hadn’t been for some guy all the way from England, you could be under a sheet right now.”

  She shuddered. Then she said, “Harvey Fine isn’t who he pretended to be, is he.”

  “No. But you didn’t hear that from me. He had to leave before the news teams got here.”

  “Oh.” That explained a lot. Undercover officers tried very hard to keep their faces out of any kind of news coverage. Morgan tried to do the same thing. He hadn’t been as successful at it lately as he needed to be, and Harley flinched at the thought she could have endangered him.

  “You’ll be happy to know your phone is still working,” Bobby said after a minute or two.

  “Really? I’m amazed. It must be industrial grade. It’ll be nice to actually leave with it at the end of the day.”

  “Ah, I didn’t say you could do that. It’s evidence.”

  “Evidence? Oh. Did I get a lot of good stuff?”

  “Some usable stuff, yes. But your phone goes to the evidence room. You’ll have to get a new one.”

  “I don’t suppose the MPD will buy me one?” she asked hopefully. The look he gave her said it all, and she sighed. “It’ll be my contribution to society. So tell me something. Is this the case you were working on? Did it start with some dead guy named Shamsky?”

  “Let me just say that you nearly unraveled a case that’s been ongoing for the last six or seven months. It started with a murder that led to a lot of questions. Then it kept getting bigger.”

  She thought for a moment, remembering what Fine and Zane had argued about. “It answers some questions for me about Fine. I thought he was a killer. I’m just trying to figure out why, if Johnny Pomona was an informant, he got killed and Jordan didn’t know. And why Zane kept threatening me. I can’t have been that big a risk for them. Obviously, I’m not exactly known as a menace to criminals.”

  Bobby laughed, then he stood up. “Come on. I’ve been asked to deliver you to a certain address. No, not Two-o-One Poplar. Although you probably should be in a cell right now after all the trouble you caused with your meddling.”

  “Are you going to yell at me?”

  “Would it do any good?”

  She shook her head. “No, I hate being yelled at, but that doesn’t usually slow me down much.”

  “I’ve noticed. So what’s Cami up to these days?”

  As he walked her to his car, Harley told him that there were some things he needed to investigate himself. Namely, what Cami was up to these days.

  It wasn’t that big a surprise when Bobby pulled in
to Morgan’s driveway. He didn’t cut his engine.

  “Thanks for letting me use your phone to call Tootsie,” she said. “I didn’t want him to worry about the bus or tourists.”

  “No problem.” He brushed her hair with the back of his hand. “Stay out of trouble for a while. We’re running low on jail cells.”

  She opened the door, got out, and stuck her head back in to say, “Take flowers. When you go to see Cami. She’s the kind of girl who likes flowers.”

  The front door opened just as she got to the porch, and Morgan held it for her. “I hear you’ve had a busy night,” he said as she stepped inside.

  “A little. It’s been a long day. I don’t suppose you have any bubble bath?”

  “Will Dawn dishwashing soap do?”

  She sighed. He put an arm around her. “We’ll see what we can find.”

  IT WASN’T EVEN light yet when Harley woke up. Mike was sleeping next to her. She had gone to sleep on the couch, wrapped up in his thick terrycloth robe, and barely remembered him carrying her to bed. She wiggled her toes under the covers, and now that she could think more clearly, reflected on the evening’s events.

  She was pretty lucky not to have been killed. Maybe Harvey Fine wouldn’t have killed her, but any one of the other three wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Jordan was lucky he’d had leverage, or he would have been dead and at the bottom of the river by now. There was still a lot she didn’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to know. Some things were best left as mysteries. Like the ingredients in Spam or potted meat. At that thought her stomach growled pretty loudly. She put her hand on it. She hadn’t eaten since early in the day. The thought of food was enticing.

  Rolling over, Morgan said into the darkness, “Did you bring a dog, or are you hungry?”

  “No and yes. Feed me, please.”

  They ended up in the kitchen, and Harley watched in growing appreciation and alarm as Mike set out enough food for an invading army of Huns.

  “No bean sprouts here,” he said, “so don’t even ask. I have real food. Ham. Hot dogs. Bacon. What do you want?”

  She settled for a grilled cheese, and even though she offered, he refused to let her make it. He put an iron skillet on the burner, tossed in some butter, and turned the flames up to medium. While he got out slices of bread and cheese in individual wrappers, she thought of ways she could ask the questions burning her brain. Finally she just came out with the first one.

  “How long and how much have you known?”

  “Only a few days. And I found out enough to be scared as hell for you. It’d be nice if you scared that easy.”

  She ignored that. “Did you know Harvey Fine was undercover? And why didn’t you tell me? You must have known what was going on all this time.”

  He glanced over at her. Wearing nothing but a pair of light sweats, he could be very distracting. “No. Going undercover doesn’t work that way.”

  “Oh. Well, what way does it work?”

  “In mysterious ways. One or two?” When she frowned, he indicated the skillet and his spatula. “Grilled cheese sandwiches. One or two?”

  “Two. I’m starved. Let’s say hypothetically that you’re a cop and you infiltrate a money laundering scam.”

  “Hypothetically? Infiltrate? Two big words in the same sentence. I’m impressed.”

  “You’re not making this easy.”

  “Then my work here is done. Get out a couple plates, will you?”

  She got out two plates and put them on the table. “So there you are, the cop in the middle of the criminals, and you find out someone has been murdered by the guys you’re supposed to be in business with, while you’re on the job. What do you do then?”

  “It all depends on who the guys are, who got murdered, and just how deep in you are. Pass me your plate.”

  She waited until they were sitting across from each other to say, “I think once he realized that the gorilla Zane had killed Pomona, he had to keep up his disguise. But why not drop a hint to someone? Don’t undercover guys call in on occasion? Don’t they have to report to someone?”

  “Gorilla?” He shook his head. “Every undercover assignment is different. It’s not always possible to report what’s going on in time. If you blow your cover, you can get killed and get someone else killed. It’s a tough call to make.”

  “Well, I still think you should have given me a heads up about Fine. I was sure he was the killer.”

  “I don’t know all the details of this case, but here’s what I think: Jordan got greedy, took the money, and when he got found out he realized it wasn’t worth dying over. So he devised a plan. He’d up the insurance money, kill his wife, and pay what he owed. Then he got cold feet and didn’t do it. That’s when he brought you in, to deflect the heat off him. It didn’t work like he’d hoped. Things were getting dangerous, so cops picked up Johnny Pomona on a weapons charge that violated his parole. He didn’t want to go back to prison, so he made a deal and turned informant. Then he got popped, and Jordan knew he was next if he didn’t do something.”

  When he paused to finish off his first sandwich, Harley said, “I don’t get it. If Jordan stole the money and put it in an offshore account, why not just go get it? That would have stopped everything.”

  “It would if he still had the money. People like Jordan spend it quick and stupid. His offshore accounts didn’t hold enough to keep those guys off his back. He shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but that’s something guys like him don’t understand. I did a little checking around of my own, and Jordan paid cash for his BMW, bought a lot of expensive suits, kept up his girlfriend in style, and supported his wife. That takes money. A lot of money. He’d even put down a chunk on a South Bluffs condo for the girlfriend. Nice place. Looks out over the river.”

  “Okay, so he was a spendthrift. If they knew he had no way of getting them their money, wouldn’t they have already killed him? I mean, they tried often enough.”

  Morgan shook his head. “Those were mostly scare tactics. Showing him they could take him out at any time in any way if he didn’t cooperate. When they found out he had hired you to run interference, they made it a point to show him that wasn’t going to help. So he had to figure out another way to get them off his back. He’s been running scared for a while.”

  “So this money laundering went through Shadowlawn Construction, and these guys didn’t own it, right? Where did they get the money they wanted laundered? And how did they get the money through?”

  “There are several different ways. Deposits, withdrawals, keep them under ten thousand, and the government doesn’t take notice. In a construction business it’s really easy to do because of the way the business runs. Shadowlawn was just one of three places they used. This money was from kickbacks, extortion money, probably even some drug money here and there. Mostly a kind of racketeering.”

  “Okay, so some guy named Shamsky was killed a while back. Jordan said he was just a front guy, a shill. What does that mean?”

  “Shamsky had once owned the company. He sold out to a group of investors and agreed to stay on to deal with clients. The real money didn’t come from construction. Shamsky figured it out, and they got rid of him. Like they did Pomona. Johnny was the brother of Jordan’s girlfriend Amy. Getting rid of him served a dual purpose—killing an informant and scaring Cleveland.”

  “But why kill him at The Peabody?”

  Mike looked at her for a moment. “It was convenient. They were all supposedly having dinner at the Rendezvous. Easy enough to meet Pomona across the street and get back in time to establish an alibi if needed. Witnesses like waiters can be useful.”

  “But Streeter tried to get me to stay and eat dinner with them. If he’d planned to murder Pomona, it wasn’t a very good plan.”

  “If you’d been his alibi, it would have been a great plan.”

  “But that awful Zane was the one who tried to scare the hell out of me, and he was at dinner too.”

  “I imagine
if you’d stayed for barbecue, you would have missed that event. It was Zane who killed Pomona, I’m pretty sure of that. If he was there to scare you, you can bet he met up with Pomona, too. You’re lucky they didn’t just get rid of you and not worry about getting heat down on them. Shamsky and Pomona were one thing. Killing you was another. Too much attention when you’re in their kind of racket is not a good thing. So they tried to scare you off.”

  “Well, they did a pretty good job of it.” She started on her second sandwich while he got up and poured them both a glass of tea. It was surprisingly good, like Grandmother Eaton made, and Mrs. Shipley. Thinking of Morgan as domesticated made her smile.

  “Yeah? Not that I could tell,” he said when he sat back down.

  “I wanted to quit, but they were after me, and nothing seemed to slow them down. I just tried to stay alive.” She paused, then said, “But why break into Tootsie’s house? He didn’t have much at all to do with any of this, so why go after him? And who was it?”

  “Jordan realized you were too close to the truth and knew it was only a matter of time before you figured out his part in it. He wanted to discourage you. He’s who attacked you, by the way. He’s experienced at quick changes of costumes because of his shows and knew how to get into the house without setting off the alarm. Steve got his prints off the breaker box and ran them through AFIS. Jordan’s expertise was cooking books, obviously not intimidation.”

  She shuddered. “Some friend he is. They might have killed Tootsie just because he’d been researching for me.”

  “No. Like I told you, that was information anyone could get at any time. Besides, if Streeter knew about Tootsie he’d have been more direct. It was all about intimidation. That’s what they were used to, and that’s what got them results. They just didn’t know they were dealing with someone who doesn’t intimidate that well.”

  “Oh, but I do. I was intimidated. I wanted out.”

  “Something to think about the next time.”

  “There’s not going to be a next time,” Harley assured him. He just looked at her. “Really. I’m through. For a while, anyway.”