Franklin got out his phone and turned away. He began walking toward the bar’s front doors. “Dispatch, this is Detective Franklin, badge 4-7-8-2. I need a residential address for Mort Jenkins.”
Warden removed the needle from Barnes’s arm, replaced it with a cotton ball. “Hold that in place.”
Across the room, Franklin spoke into his phone, “Yes, the news anchor!”
“You haven’t lost your touch,” Barnes said, offering a conciliatory smirk.
“Like riding a bike,” Warden said, alcohol on his breath. He stripped a Band-Aid and placed it over the cotton ball on Barnes’s arm.
Barnes hopped off the table and grabbed his jacket. He winced in pain as he slid a sleeve over his surgically repaired shoulder.
“Those old wounds still bother you?” Warden said.
“Sometimes,” Barnes said. He curled his arm up, closed his fist, opened it again, wriggled his fingers. From within his mind came a new whisper.
“Where am I?” Leo.
“Shhh.”
“How’s the new gig?” Barnes said to Warden as he picked up his cane.
“Great,” Warden said. He scratched at his elbow pit.
Barnes watched the move curiously, then looked up at Warden’s face. He couldn’t help but steal a glance at the man’s closely cropped temples.
“Don’t judge me,” Warden said. “You have no right.”
Barnes reached into his jacket pocket and produced a business card, handed it to Warden.
Warden took the card and read it. “You’re a sponsor now?”
“My name is John,” Barnes said, acting as though he were speaking in front of a group, “and I’ve been off the machine for”—he looked back at the machine on the chair cushion—“what, sixty seconds?”
Warden chuckled. He looked at the card again and then slipped it into his pocket.
Barnes placed a hand on Warden’s shoulder. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“We got Jenkins,” Franklin said, standing just inside the bar door. “Let’s go.”
Mort Jenkins looked rough without his television makeup, never mind that it was 4:00 a.m. and the cops had dragged him out of bed. He stood in the doorway of his Birmingham estate wearing a black silk robe. “What was that name again?”
“Leo Vance,” Franklin said. “He worked with you on The Eddie Able Show. We’ve had his name for a while, plus an old address, but we haven’t been able to locate him.”
Jenkins shook his head. “No one named Leo worked on the show. I’d remember.”
“Is he. Talking about me?” Leo.
“Shhh.”
“Your first show,” Barnes said. “At pretaping, he was there. He suggested Eddie’s final line.”
Jenkins blinked. He looked up and over. “Wait. Oh yeah. He had a lisp or something?”
“I don’t. Have a lisp!” Leo, using Barnes’s mouth.
Mort Jenkins looked strangely at Barnes. “What?”
“Ignore that,” Franklin said.
Jenkins held Barnes in a perplexed gaze.
Franklin snapped his fingers before the news anchor’s face. “You remember him or what?”
Jenkins turned his eyes to Franklin. “Yeah, I remember now. He was a stagehand, I think. Only lasted one day with the crew. I guess I forgot.”
“What happened to him?” Franklin said.
“He gave us that awful sign-off line. There was such an uproar from the parents in the audience that we had to refund some tickets. The next morning someone went to find this Leo—it was Joe Smitty went to find him, I think—and let him know he was fired, but the guy never showed up for his second day.”
“After. What happened. How could I?” Leo.
“Shhh.”
“He never even picked up his paycheck,” Jenkins said.
“Wait, what?” Franklin said.
“I’m sure it wasn’t worth much, but I remember Smitty saying he never even came back to pick up his paycheck.”
“The show was produced by WXON, right?” Barnes said.
Jenkins sighed. “Let me get my coat.”
34
“Hey there, Arnie,” Mort Jenkins said. He waved to a small security camera mounted above the back door to WXON studios in Southfield. A blinking red light could be seen just below the camera’s lens.
A voice came over the speaker. “What’s up, Mort? It’s nearly five a.m.”
“My friends would like a tour,” Jenkins said, rolling his eyes as he gestured to Franklin and Barnes. They showed their badges to the camera.
A buzzer sounded.
The news anchor pushed the door open, and they stepped into the studio to find themselves backstage. Huge mounted cameras sat dormant and dark among the white screens, prompters, and taped X marks on the floor.
They moved past the news desk, which seemed tiny compared to how it looked on TV. Arnie was waiting for them at the door to the control room. He was a solidly built man with the initial makings of love handles. Likely a former cop as well as a gym rat. He adjusted his gun belt. “What’s up, Mort?”
“These guys would like to take a look at some old employee records. Can we get access to the room?”
Arnie made a pained face. “Hate to ask, but can I see those badges again?”
Franklin put his badge so close to Arnie’s nose he had to back up to read it. He smiled and gripped a key ring attached to his belt by a retractable chain. “Follow me.”
They left the studio and walked down a hall to a door marked RECORDS. Arnie opened the door, flicked on a light, and motioned for them to enter. “It’s chronological by year, and then alphabetical by employee name. Who are you looking to find?”
Mort opened his mouth to reply, but Franklin cut him off. “Thank you, Arnie. We’ll take it from here.”
Arnie stepped out of the room and closed the door.
“I thought you already had an old address on him?” Jenkins said.
“Just what we dug up on a machine registration form,” Franklin said. “Led us to a landfill in Northville. This guy’s been a ghost for thirty years.”
“He was weird,” Jenkins said. “I remember that now. Good with his hands and gadgets and things, but . . . I don’t know, just the kind of guy that gave you the creeps, you know?”
“How’d he get the job?” Barnes said.
Franklin knelt down to examine the label on a file box.
“I guess he was pretty good with kids,” Jenkins said, “and handy as shit, come to think of it. He rigged up the Eddie head with a device that would say Eddie’s catchphrases for me. I just had to press a little joy buzzer inside my glove and a speaker in the head would sound off. It was crucial. Being inside that head was suffocating, and it was nice to be able to interact without always having to use that stupid high-pitched voice.”
Franklin pulled out a box. “Here we go.” He took it over to a table and flipped off the top. He began riffling through the manila folders until he found V. He pulled out the folder and opened it, laid it flat on the table, slid aside pay records and check stubs for a variety of employees whose last names began with V until he came to Leonardo Vance. The check was still there, uncashed. The address was 1857 Heidelberg, Detroit, MI.
Franklin raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Mort Jenkins said.
“The Heidelberg Project?” Barnes said.
“Is that the block where all the houses are pieces of art?” Jenkins asked.
Franklin closed the folder and stuffed it back into the box. “Yep.”
“This guy lives there?”
“One way to find out.”
35
The dawn brought more rain. The night sky gradually shifted from black to a drab gray as the sun ascended from behind cloud cover. The nearby homes and buildings were painted like things out of a children’s book—polka-dot patterns, colorful squares, numbers and letters in a jumble. A distant house was covered in stuffed animals and action figures stapled to the siding, one of whic
h was an Eddie Able fireman edition. A chain-link fence was draped in discarded shoes. Sidewalks were painted with giant faces and paw prints.
Franklin pulled the sedan over to a curb on Heidelberg Street.
“What’s the point of all this?” Barnes said.
“Make people think,” Franklin said. “Get a reaction.”
“It’s beautiful.” Leo.
“Shhh.”
“Which one is it?” Franklin said.
Barnes pointed to a tiny house on the corner, one block off what was considered the Heidelberg Project. The yard was overrun with six-foot-high weeds. The roof was in dire need of re-shingling. The siding was a simple brown, much of it eaten through by termites. Cracked windows were duct-taped in lightning patterns.
A man in a trench coat emerged from the front door of the house. He popped open an umbrella and walked down the porch steps, started down the sidewalk in the direction away from the sedan’s position.
The detectives got out of the car.
Barnes followed behind Franklin through the rain, a little slower than his partner due to his limp. His knee and shoulder ached.
“Sir,” Franklin called out.
The man stopped and turned back. His face was in shadow due to the umbrella. Barnes switched his cane to his left hand. With his right he reached into his jacket and produced his Glock, held it close to his thigh as they approached.
Franklin stopped twenty feet short of the man’s position. He pointed at the house from which the stranger had emerged. “You live here?”
The man nodded.
“Can I have your name?” Franklin said.
“Jim,” the man said. “Jim Dobbins.”
Franklin showed the man his badge. “Can you come back here, please?”
“What’s this about?” the man said.
“Just come back.”
“I’m going to be late for work,” the man said, gesturing with his head in the direction he was going.
“Get back here,” Franklin said, employing his booming voice. “Now.”
Barnes caught up to Franklin as the man came back. He stood a few feet away from the detectives under his umbrella, looked at the gun in Barnes’s hand.
“You own this house?” Franklin said.
“No,” the man said. “I rent.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know,” the man said.
“You don’t know your landlord’s name?”
“Look,” the man said, “I’ve got a record, okay? I got popped for DWI while I was on probation for assault. Been out a month and I found a job sweeping up at Saint Bradford.” He thumbed over his shoulder, again indicating the direction he was going. “This guy tells me he’ll let me rent, no paperwork, no questions asked. I jumped at it.”
“Let’s see some ID,” Franklin said.
The man got out his wallet and began fishing for his card.
“This landlord,” Barnes said. “What’s he look like?”
“Older guy, I guess,” Jim Dobbins said, handing a state ID card to Franklin. “Fifties, maybe?”
“The name Leo doesn’t ring a bell?”
Dobbins shook his head.
“Vance?”
“No.”
“How’d you meet him?” Franklin said.
“Man, this is gonna cost me my job,” Dobbins said. “I can’t be late.”
“Answer our questions and you can go. How’d you meet him?”
“All right, you know that project on the southwest side?”
“Machine City?” Barnes said.
“Yeah,” Dobbins said. “I guess that’s what they call it. Anyway, they got some kind of abandoned arcade room in the basement of one of the buildings. I stayed there a few days after I did my stint. Ran into him while I was there.”
“What do you mean you stayed there?” Barnes said.
“I needed a place to crash,” Dobbins said. He indicated the rain. “To stay out of this shit. Back door was unlocked. I snuck in there after the courtyard quieted down for the night. Met him once I was inside. Scared the hell out of me to find him down there.”
“Are you saying this guy lives in that basement?” Franklin said.
“I think he’s the maintenance man,” Dobbins said.
“Which building?” Barnes said.
“A, I think.”
“How do you pay him rent?” Franklin said.
“Bitcoin,” Dobbins said. “I buy it and send it to his account. Gotta use a computer at the church, but they’re cool with it.”
Franklin handed Dobbins back his ID. He side-nodded toward the house. “He’s not in there right now?”
“What do you want him for?” Dobbins said.
“Answer the question.”
“No, he’s not in there,” Dobbins said. “What do you want him for?”
Franklin looked at Barnes.
“Little Cher,” Barnes said.
Jim Dobbins closed his eyes, his lips curled in anger. He opened his eyes again. “The man I assaulted?” he said. “Stepdad to my little girl. One day she tells me he touched her, and I . . .” He looked off and clenched a fist, raked his upper teeth against his lower lip.
“We get the point,” Barnes said.
“Go to Machine City,” Dobbins said. “He’ll be there.”
36
“Leon Vince,” the dispatcher said. “Name’s been on their employee records for ten years. Maintenance man.”
“Vince?” Franklin said.
“Could be a typo,” the dispatcher said.
“Son of a bitch,” Franklin said.
Barnes clicked off the radio. Franklin pulled through the Machine City parking lot, bounced over a curb, and sped through the concrete courtyard, scattering the people there. The dealers ran the fastest.
“Nothing like making an entrance,” Barnes said.
Franklin veered toward building A and drove all the way to the far end of the concrete, stopping before the tires hit the grass. “You take the back door. I’ll take the front.”
“Wait for backup?” Barnes said.
Franklin shook his head. “If she’s in there, we need to move.”
They got out. Franklin hustled through the downpour back up the parking lot toward the building’s front doors. Barnes left his cane in the car and limped toward the back.
The door was unlocked, just as Jim Dobbins had said. Barnes pushed it open and crossed the threshold into a small hallway with a door on one side. His bald head dripped. He pushed the door open slowly, gagging at the scent. A bathroom. He aimed his weapon at the single stall. A quick search revealed nothing but a toilet buzzing with bluebottle flies.
He moved deeper into the building.
The basement’s main floor carried the scents of sawdust and grease. Pipes hung overhead, flanked by shelves stacked with drills and saws, hammers, boxes of nails and screws, cut plywood and particle board. Overhead fluorescent lights dangled from chains, their bulbs knocked out and shattered on the floor.
Hell of a maintenance man.
Barnes moved forward slowly, moving flashlight and weapon first around shelving units, nitrogen canisters, and a table saw.
He held his breath when a flashlight beam appeared at the far end of the room. Barnes watched for a moment, and then whistled “shave-and-a-haircut.”
The returning whistle was not the natural “two-bits” but a repeat of “shave-and-a-haircut,” indicating it was Franklin. The big man emerged from behind a stack of boxes and signaled silently to Barnes, indicating a door that read EMPLOYEES ONLY along the eastern wall.
The detectives moved across the room toward the door. Along the way Barnes felt a tug at his feet. A trip wire. “Shit.”
“Guess he knows we’re here,” Franklin whispered.
“Then fuck it,” Barnes said. He charged toward the door as fast as his bum leg would let him. He kicked it open and stepped to the side, expecting a blast from a shotgun or some other such thing. Instead, a peek reveal
ed a set of stairs leading into darkness.
“I got you covered,” Franklin said, aiming his gun down the steps.
Barnes descended to find a dead-bolted door at the base of the staircase. “Police!” he called. “Open up!”
No answer.
Barnes tried the door handle, found it unlocked. He turned it and pushed the door open. A dark room. He aimed his beam. The light revealed swirling dust over the black backs of arcade cabinets. He moved inside the door and aimed the light to reveal that the cabinets had been seemingly arranged into a maze, covering what appeared to be the entire length of a second basement lower than the first. The space was possibly the remnant of a previous structure knocked down when the projects went up.
“You all right?” Franklin said.
“Yeah,” Barnes said. “Come on down.”
Franklin started down the steps, but the basement door slammed closed behind Barnes. The dead bolt snicked into locked position. Barnes heard the muffled thumps of Franklin’s feet as he ran down the steps.
“Locked,” Franklin said. His voice was nearly muted by the reinforced door. “I’m gonna shoot it.”
“Don’t!” Barnes said. He illuminated the dead bolt from his side, saw that it was a bulletproof model, saw the wiring connected to the lock and the closing arm at the top. A live trap. Anyone coming in wasn’t meant to come out. “Call for backup.”
“Gotta go back upstairs to get a signal,” Franklin said. “Stay put.”
A sound from behind drew Barnes’s attention. Breathing? No. The hum of electric machinery. He turned away from the basement door and started through the twisting maze of dormant arcade and pinball games. His flashlight illuminated Donkey Kong and Galaga, their colorful panels hovering over the iron sights of his handgun. He stepped slowly, checking for trip wires along the way. Ms. Pac-Man, Street Fighter. The maze twisted left. Arkanoid, Rampage. And then back right again. BurgerTime and Mania Challenge. He came to an open spot on the north side of the room.
His light exposed the far wall, which was stacked with cardboard boxes and piles of fiberglass Eddie Able heads in various states of decay. Monster masks. Some were full of rat holes, others were turned upside down. Mesh eyes were torn out, noses knocked in, ears missing. One mask had an old brown stain about the width of a gloved finger trailing from below its nose down over its lips and chin.
Machine City: A Thriller (Detective Barnes Book 2) Page 24