Missing

by Jonathan Valin

  I laughed. “He probably will.”

  “You’ll call me?” she said, as I opened the door.

  “In the afternoon.”

  “Promise?”

  I promised.

  ******

  She had it figured out fairly shrewdly, except for one thing. Paul Grandin was still under indictment for solicitation. Sick or not, he could still be brought to trial and locked down in a prison ward for the rest of his life, however short that might be. Even though the kid didn’t really deserve much better, Greenleaf’s death and Sullivan’s after it made it seem important that that didn’t happen. It was about the only thing that could be salvaged from the whole business: the last days of Paul Grandin, Jr.’s, miserable life.

  So when I got to the office I started making the calls. The first one was to Ron Sabato at Vice. I told him what I proposed: my silence for Grandin’s freedom. Like Mason Greenleaf redux.

  “We don’t make deals like that, Harry,” he said, when I got through explaining it. “I thought I made that clear last night. We don’t get bribed or threatened.”

  “You’ll make this deal, Ron. Before the day’s out. Or I’ll call Art Spiegalman at the Enquirer. And then Dave Ratner at the FBI. They may not nail you and your pal, but they’ll make life interesting for the next six to nine months—for the whole damn Vice division. You ever seen the FeeBees work an internal affairs investigation? They’re pesky bastards.”

  “Harry, you’re making a mistake. I’m telling you.”

  “Just do it, Ron. And that’ll be the end of it.”

  After I got done with Sabato, I called Nate Segal at Six.

  “You get the results of those blood tests yet, Nate?”

  “Yeah,” he said sourly. “It was Greenleaf’s blood. So what?”

  “It’s interesting, that’s all. Him bleeding all over the backseat of the car before he offed himself.”

  “He fell down and busted his nose.”

  “No, he didn’t. He got slugged by Art Stiehl.”

  There was a silence on the line. Then Segal started to laugh a phony laugh. I really didn’t want to go through the whole bit, so I cut him off before he could start.

  “Let’s skip the bullshit. I know it was Sabato and Stiehl in the bar. I know why they were there, and I know what happened. I also know you and Taylor covered it up.”

  “Now, just a second—”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, okay? I don’t much care why you did it. All I care about is getting the charges against Paul Grandin, Jr., dropped. You see to that, this thing stays quiet. You don’t, and your name is going to be in the newspaper tomorrow morning.”

  “Hey, fuck you, Stoner. You don’t threaten me.”

  “I am threatening you, Nate. You got two years to retirement, right? How’d you like to spend half of them answering questions for newspaper reporters and the FBI and lying through your teeth?”

  “Nobody covered up anything,” he said sullenly. “The cock-sucker killed himself.”

  “He got pushed, Nate. Hard. You think it over. Talk to Taylor and your pals at Vice. I’ll be in the office all day.”

  It occurred to me, as I hung up, that I was really asking for it. From guys who could deliver—and get away scot-free. It made some sense to talk to a lawyer. So I called Laurel Gould at her office and gave her the names of the principals and the details of the Greenleaf case. I also told her that if I ended up in a cell or dead in a ditch, she was to do her best to nail the bastards.

  “That’ll be a great solace to your survivors,” she said acidly. “Why don’t you let me handle this for you? I have friends in the DA’s office.”

  “So do Art Stiehl and Ron Sabato. Tell me the DA in this town is going to do a pair of cops in a fag suicide without ironclad proof. Jesus Christ, this is Cincinnati.”

  “You’re crying over spilt milk, Harry. It’s not like you.”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “You have a death wish, my boy,” she said, hanging up.

  What I had was a few deaths on my conscience.

  As the morning wore on, I felt more and more as if I was doing the right thing. It gave me a short-lived feeling of decency. Which, when it died out, left me feeling in the right and afraid. I dug my Gold Cup out of the safe, where I’d left it for the last five years in an oiled rag. Field-stripped it. Cleaned and reoiled it. Found a clip, loaded eight rounds of hollow-point. Chambered a round. Stuck the thing in the desk drawer and waited.

  Around noon, I called Cindy. She’d talked to Sam Greenleaf in Nashville. He’d agreed to the blackmail.

  “I didn’t tell him all of it. He didn’t really want to know the details—like I figured.”

  “You did good,” I said. “Phone Nancy Grandin and tell her. She’s probably at her father’s house in Indian Hill. On Camargo.”

  “Why don’t you call it a day, and we’ll both tell her.”

  “I have things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things. I’ll be home tonight. We’ll talk.”

  “You kind of like this domestic routine, don’t you?” she said with a laugh.

  “It’s good that I met you,” I said. “It’s good that I feel like I feel again. I didn’t think I could.”

  “Come out here, won’t you? I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You won’t be alone. I’ll finish up here soon.”

  About an hour after I got done talking to Cindy, Stiehl and Ron Sabato showed up at my office door. It had begun to rain again. The sky was dark, and the thunder rattled the windows. They both came into the inner office and sat down on chairs across from my desk, like something from the street blown in by the storm.

  I’d never seen Stiehl before. He was a big, muscular man in his early thirties, reddish blond, with a trim mustache that covered some of his upper lip. He had a flat, red, unsmiling face and cold blue eyes. Even if he hadn’t been provoked, he looked like trouble. Sabato was nervous. He kept glancing from the door, to me, to his partner—all the time pumping his right leg like he had to pee.

  Stiehl crossed his legs and stared at me. “One way or another, this is going to end right here, right now,” he said with a mild vehemence.

  “You can end it quick,” I said. “Just drop the charges against Grandin.”

  He smiled coldly. “Just like that. ‘Cause you said so?”

  “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “‘Cause you said so?” He stopped smiling. “Let me tell you where I’m coming from. I’d just as soon march you out of here right now. Take you downstairs to the alley, throw you in the trunk, drive you out to a place I know, and leave you there.” He leaned forward menacingly. He was so worked up, he had begun to spit. “You threaten me! Without even knowing what the fuck you’re talking about!”

  “Art,” Sabato said uneasily.

  Under the desk, out of sight, I pulled the top drawer open slightly, enough to where I could see the Gold Cup, its oiled blue barrel gleaming in the stormy light.

  Stiehl breathed hard for a few moments, staring at me, while I stared back at him—my hand just below the desk drawer. After a time he leaned back slowly in the chair.

  “You want us to let that kid walk,” he said with a dismissive laugh. “‘Cause you think you know what’s going down. You don’t know shit.

  “There’s a fucking fire burning in this country,” he said, jerking at his coat sleeves, straightening himself up. “And the way I look at it, it’s killing the right people—the people who started it. Don’t expect me to feel sorry for them.”

  “What does that have to do with Grandin? He’s dying of it.”

  “Let him die of it.”

  “What possible difference does it make to you whether he dies of it in prison or in a hospital bed?”

  “He committed a crime. He goes to jail.”

  “What crime was that?”

  “Stoner,” he said, leaning forward to the desk, “I’m in the street every day. I know w
hat I’m doing. I know what I see. This kid was holding drugs. He’d been busted for possession and possession for sale three times previous. I saw him flush the shit down the toilet. He lived a scumbag life and is dying a scumbag death. Now you tell me why I should forget what I saw?”

  “Because of Greenleaf.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Stiehl said.

  “You helped. Look, I know the drill, too. Counting the army, I was a cop for seven years. I did some things I wasn’t proud of. Every cop does. You can’t second-guess yourself. I’m not saying you should. But when something’s this wrong, it’s got to be corrected. Last night in the bar, I was going to forget this whole thing because of something I did five years ago. Something I’ve been carrying around with me and never made right. Maybe that’s why I’m doing this now—because somebody died because of me and I never made it right.”

  Stiehl stared at me. “You’re saying somebody died?”

  I nodded. “A man named Chard.”

  The two cops exchanged a look.

  “What’re you telling us this for?” Sabato asked.

  “So we can get past this shit about who’s got the upper hand and just do the fucking right thing.”

  “I don’t get it,” Stiehl said, shaking his head. “We’re not priests. Confessing your sins isn’t going to change a thing.”

  But it had changed something. I could see it in his face. I’d given him some leverage. It was what a guy like him mostly understood: the physics of dominance.

  He glanced over at Sabato. “Go on out in the hall, Ron. I got something to talk about with this one you don’t have to hear.”

  Sabato got to his feet. “I don’t want any shit in here, Art.”

  “We’re past that,” Stiehl said.

  Sabato grunted, went over to the door and out into the anteroom, closing the door behind him. Stiehl stared at me.

  “Look, I don’t apologize except in the confessional. I do what I think is right and live with it. That night at the bar is no different. This guy, this Greenleaf, was acting like we could be bought—bought by the likes of him. I put him straight on that. And when I went after him in the lot, I’ll admit I was going to work him over.” He paused for a moment and said, “But I didn’t work him over.”

  I gave him a look. “You’re saying you didn’t beat him up?”

  “I didn’t have to,” Stiehl said. “I followed him over to his car, calling him every fucking name I could think of. Telling him I was going to bust his ass in the morning. Laying it on thick about how he was going down and going away. I’m dead serious, Stoner. And this guy knows it. Each word, he bends over a little more with the weight. Anyway, he gets to the car, turns around, and smiles. Weird fucking smile. I tell him to wipe the fucking smile off. And then the crazy son of a bitch does something like I’ve never seen before. He raises his head, still smiling, and bashes it into the roof of his car. Just . . . bashes it into the car—face first, right down on the car. Two, three times. Until he knocks himself silly and falls down on the pavement.”

  Stiehl shook his head disbelievingly. “I never saw anything like that in my life. And I’ve seen a lot of guys do a lot of shit. I stood there with my jaw hanging open. He’s scrambling around on the ground, groaning, crying. I was so fucking shocked, I give him a hand into the backseat of his car. Told him he was a fucking idiot. Then turned around and went back into the bar. I never hit him, Stoner. That’s the truth.”

  I sat there, thinking about the raw terror and self-disgust of Mason Greenleaf’s last hour on earth. “What difference does it make if you hit him or you didn’t, Art?”

  “Not much,” he conceded. “But I didn’t.”

  Neither one of us said anything.

  “If I go along with this, it’s not like I’m admitting I did the wrong thing,” Stiehl said after a time. “As far as I can tell, Greenleaf deserved what he got. He queered that kid, and then when the boy ended up with AIDS, he tried to pull the kid’s ass out of the fire and cover his own. What kind of friend is that?”

  “If it makes a difference, I don’t think he did a thing to that kid, except show him charity. He felt guilty about his own life and wanted to find a way to make up for it.”

  “Then he should have gone to a priest. He shouldn’t have come to me.” He glanced at the door and called his partner back in.

  “You done?” Sabato said, edging nervously into the room, looking relieved to see I was still in one piece.

  “We’re done,” Stiehl said to him. “So what do you say? Do we pull the plug on Grandin?”

  Ron shrugged. “What’s it cost us to go uptown? We didn’t really catch him with the goods. He’s dying anyway.”

  Stiehl thought about it for a moment, then got to his feet. Sabato stood up, too.

  “You’re a lucky man, you know that?” Stiehl said to me. “I was pretty close to killing you when I came in.”

  “I know you were.”

  He held out his hand, and we shook.

  They walked out the door. When I was sure they were gone, I opened the desk drawer fully and took out the Gold Cup, unloaded it, and wrapped it back up in its oilcloth in the safe.

  33

  I DROVE straight out to Cindy’s house, drove like a kid out of the army going home. And when I got there and found her there, I hung on to her for a long time. I never did tell her what Stiehl told me about Mason’s last half hour in Stacie’s lot. And she seemed content not to hear it, as if she knew it would be terrible, as if she’d turned a corner in our relationship that had taken her away from the violence of Mason Greenleaf’s death, as if we both had.

  Terrible it had been. In some fashion, that fire Stiehl talked about had consumed Mason Greenleaf, too, while he was trying all alone to put it out. He’d simply gone to the wrong person for help. Maybe there hadn’t been a right person. Maybe those last five days had been a circuit that merely took him back, through Cavanaugh and Paul Grandin and Ralph Cable, to a guilt and regret he’d never been able to shake. In the end the retribution that Mulhane had said he was waiting on had been waiting on him. I’ll admit it haunted me a little, even though I’d managed to get that kid off the hook for him.

  Later that same week, Stiehl and Sabato did what they’d said they’d do. The charges were dropped, and Paul Grandin got to spend his last few months out of court and out of jail. He died in the winter of the year, alone, staring out the rest home window at the snow.

  Throughout the winter Cindy made a slow adjustment to life with a PI. I made my adjustments to life with her. I don’t drink as much as I used to, or as often. We spend as much time as we can together and toy with the idea of getting married—maybe after I retire. The only time she talks about Mason Greenleaf is sometimes at night, when he comes back to her in dreams.

  THE END

  Enjoy all of Jonathan Valin’s HARRY STONER series, as both Ebooks and Audiobooks!

  **********

  The Lime Pit: Harry Stoner Series #1

  Final Notice: Harry Stoner Series #2

  Dead Letter: Harry Stoner Series #3

  Day of Wrath: Harry Stoner Series #4

  Natural Causes: Harry Stoner Series #5

  Life’s Work: Harry Stoner Series #6

  Fire Lake: Harry Stoner Series #7

  Extenuating Circumstances: Harry Stoner Series #8

  Second Chance: Harry Stoner Series #9

  The Music Lovers: Harry Stoner Series #10

  Missing: Harry Stoner Series #11