First of State

by Robert Greer

  “Nope.”

  “Then we’ll see you tomorrow morning at eight,” said Ike. “And Marguerite, on your way out why don’t you show DeeAnn where we rustle up our morning fog lifter?”

  “Okay,” said Marguerite, escorting DeeAnn out of Ike’s office and down the hall toward the coffee alcove.

  They were barely out of earshot when Ike, excitedly rubbing his hands together, said, “Nice little surprise, Ms. Slater, don’t you think? And willin’ to come in on a Saturday mornin’ to get started. Can’t beat that.”

  “Sure can’t,” said CJ, sounding like someone who’d stumbled across something both tantalizing and treacherous. “Can’t beat it with a stick.”

  The lights inside Gaylord Marquee’s house had been out for twenty minutes when, kneeling with a phone receiver in one hand and peering over a bedroom windowsill, Marquee announced to the person on the other end of the line, “The little sawed-off runt’s been casing my house on and off for a good week now, maybe even longer.”

  “And you’re sure it’s the same person?”

  “Of course. His name’s Petey Greene. Calls himself an antique dealer. A street hustler is what he is.”

  “Does he know anything about our dealings?”

  “I don’t think so. But then again, I can’t be sure. He’s a slick little SOB. He’s got a camera with him again tonight, taking pictures. He’s probably got shots of me from every spot in the damn county.”

  “Not good. Not good at all. You’ll have to take care of him. He might be smart enough to put two and two together.”

  Marquee shook his head in protest. “I’m not taking care of anybody.”

  “You sound like a man with a sudden case of cold feet, Marquee. Strange, considering all that stiff-upper-lip British army background of yours.”

  “Screw you.”

  There was a truncated snicker. “No need to use filthy language, Marquee. But one way or another, I’ll expect you to handle Mr. Greene.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll think of something. Just make sure no fecal matter ends up being slung my way.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of slinging any shit your way,” said Marquee, gritting his teeth to control his anger as he hung up and peered down on Petey Greene and the moped he’d only partially hidden in a clump of shrubs.

  Chapter 20

  Petey Greene had on his engaging, boy-next-door, only-the-straight-poop, honest-to-Betsy, reel-in-the-sucker look. He’d perfected that face over years in order to capture those uninformed, unseasoned, just-gotta-have-it buyers who showed up at swap meets, flea markets, antique auctions, and garage sales with fat wallets and no brains, hoping to score big because they’d heard from some loquacious friend, distant relative, or office coworker that a friend of a friend had stumbled across a Remington, Russell, Picasso, or some other priceless art object at a similar gathering for no more than the price of a pair of tennis shoes.

  License-plate swap meets, however, weren’t among his favorites for two reasons. They tended to attract too many knowledgeable people and not enough suckers, and the attendance was usually too small to garner a really big score. The Rocky Mountain Automobile License Plate Collectors Association meet he was headed for that morning wouldn’t draw more than a hundred and fifty people, most of whom knew quite well how to play the trade-and-barter game. There’d be a buck or two to be made, no question, but coming home with a serious profit wasn’t generally in the cards.

  He’d show up nonetheless because what counted at the end of the day in the business he was in was to have your name and, even better, your face out there for potential buyers to see.

  Walking with a half-finished cup of black coffee in one hand from the cluttered bedroom into the living room of the Five Points apartment he’d rented month to month for nearly five years, he reminded himself to think positive. It could, after all, turn out to be a red-letter day.

  Whistling “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” off key, he pulled back the once white lace window curtains his doting mother had given him as a housewarming present when he’d first moved into the apartment. A smile crossed his face as he took a look outside. The now dingy curtains seemed to perfectly frame the cloudless blue sky. It was the kind of swap-meet day that just might lend itself to his successfully pulling off his salted-mine scam, he told himself, checking to make sure his moped was locked down securely in the slip tent he rented for thirty-five dollars a month.

  Unlike his friend CJ Floyd, or Gaylord Marquee, he didn’t have much of a license-plate collection, and certainly no license plate among those he owned would bring top dollar. He owned a few vintage porcelains, none that were very rare and none that were mint, that he’d been trying to peddle for over a year. Most people who’d looked them over were well schooled enough to spot their lightly chipped and faintly crazed porcelain or to notice the extra postproduction holes, flaws that considerably diminished their value. Nonetheless, the plates could look inviting to a novice, and until they were examined closely, they could appear, as Petey loved to boast, absolutely golden.

  He reminded himself that all he needed for the day was one good sucker, that one unsuspecting collector who, after realizing he couldn’t afford the pristine, eight-hundred-dollar, mint-condition 1914 porcelain plate he’d just drooled over down the aisle, strolled disappointedly up to Petey’s table to find a sympathetic face and pretty much the identical plate at half the price. Once the hook was set, Petey knew only too well how to finesse his fish, judiciously using words like overpriced and East Coast specialist to describe the price-gouging vendor his mark had just left.

  One glassy-eyed sucker was all he needed for his day to come up roses. That, and Gaylord Marquee’s presence at the swap meet. A morning of shadowing Marquee would earn him a few extra of CJ Floyd’s dollars, and when all was said and done, he just might end the day four or five hundred dollars richer.

  Setting aside his coffee cup, he pulled the curtains fully open and stared out into the bright morning sunshine, thinking that it just might turn out to be a special kind of day.

  CJ bounded down the fire-escape stairs from his apartment for the swap meet a little before eight-thirty, determined to scope out the grounds for any sign of Gaylord Marquee before the meet’s scheduled 9 a.m. start. Thanks to Petey Greene’s snooping, he knew that Marquee, Cheryl Goldsby, and Molly Burgess had some kind of connection. What he really needed to find out was whether or not, five-and-a-half years earlier, that connection had sparked a couple of murders. He’d tried to catch Petey by phone before leaving home without any luck, and he hoped the two of them could share notes on Marquee before the swap meet opened. All he’d gotten was a busy signal, and he suspected that the lecherous little con artist had unplugged his phone in order to ensure himself a night of uninterrupted pleasure with a couple of hookers.

  What he needed most from Petey were the photos of Marquee, Goldsby, and Burgess that Petey had bragged about taking. The photos would certainly help in any flat-out confrontation he might have with Marquee, and since Petey had promised to bring them to the swap meet, where he also expected to collect payment for his services, there was no reason to expect Petey wouldn’t be there.

  CJ was halfway across the driveway and almost to the ungaraged Bel Air when DeeAnn Slater poked her head out the front door to the office and yelled, “Sounded like a wrecking ball slamming into the side of the building. Figured I’d better come have a look.”

  “No, just me heading out,” said CJ, his eyes locked on the miniskirted DeeAnn. “Guess I should’ve told you about using the fire escape.”

  “So now I know.” She walked toward CJ, stopped a couple of feet away from him, and rested a hand seductively above her slightly cocked left hip.

  “Ike up yet?” CJ asked as the words God, what a body worked their way through his head.

  “Yes, and he’s been coughing up a storm. Sorta worries me, to tell you the truth.”

  “That makes two of us,” said CJ, looking con
cerned. “Keep an eye on him and call Marguerite to come by and help if you run into a problem organizing things. I should be back in a couple of hours.”

  DeeAnn nodded and shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “Ike tells me you were in Vietnam.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I had a brother who was killed over there.”

  A lump formed in CJ’s throat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks,” DeeAnn said, reaching out and clasping CJ’s right hand in hers.

  The warmth of her touch froze him in his tracks momentarily. Slowly easing his hand out of hers and heading for the Bel Air, he said, “If you ever need to talk to me about your brother, I’m here.”

  DeeAnn nodded without answering.

  As he backed down the driveway with his eyes locked on the retreating figure of the new hire, he simply shook his head and whispered, “Damn.”

  Petey Greene’s moped had been giving him headaches for weeks, stopping for no good reason, flooding when he tried to start it, sputtering and coughing its way up hills. As he headed for the swap meet, helmetless and with his fingers crossed, he hoped the temperamental scooter would be cooperative that day.

  Traffic on the westbound Sixth Avenue freeway was Saturday-morning light as he nosed the moped into a surprisingly stiff breeze on his way to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds just west of Denver.

  A foam-lined, toaster-oven-sized box filled to capacity with license plates was strapped to the moped’s rear luggage carrier. He’d chosen his fare for the swap meet the previous evening, placing each license plate in a Ziploc freezer bag for protection and capping off the assemblage with the 1914 Pennsylvania porcelain plate he planned to use as sucker bait.

  Sputtering along the freeway, underpowered and ten miles an hour below the speed limit, he was decked out in his trademark bone-white painters bib overalls. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that it was going to be his day since leaving his apartment. Humming “American Pie” to himself and tapping his foot to the beat of the Don McLean song, he swerved to miss a pothole. He’d barely straightened the moped back out when the driver of a Chevy Suburban that had been closing in on him gunned the big-block V-8’s engine.

  Hearing the engine roar and suspecting that the driver was irritated by his dawdling and swerving, Petey moved toward the median, glancing back over his shoulder to make certain he was out of the impatient driver’s way. He barely had time to let out a terrified scream as the Suburban sped to over ninety miles an hour, plowed into the moped, and slammed driver and scooter into the guardrail that lined the concrete median. The crunch of the moped and the grinding of the fishtailing Suburban’s bumper against the guardrail blended into one as license plates, scooter fenders, and engine parts flew everywhere. Petey’s unprotected head bounced from pavement to guardrail as he rocketed headfirst down the freeway, landing ninety feet beyond the point of initial impact.

  By the time the Suburban’s driver gunned the damaged vehicle west, the driver of a trailing vehicle had his car stopped on the shoulder. Three other vehicles had pulled over and stopped by the time the first driver reached Petey. Seconds later, the Suburban that had slammed into Petey dropped over a rise and disappeared into the Rocky Mountain foothills.

  As four terrified witnesses to the hit-and-run stood over Petey Greene’s contorted, rag-doll-like body, the driver who’d seen the whole thing unfold felt along Petey’s wrist for a pulse.

  “Do something!” screamed one of the newcomers.

  “There’s nothing to be done,” the kneeling man said softly.

  “How the hell do you know that?” a third man yelled.

  “He’s got no vitals,” came the reply.

  “You sure?”

  Looking surprisingly calm and clearly less upset than the other witnesses, one of whom had turned his back and walked away to keep from throwing up, the man nodded and said, “I’m a trauma doc at Saint Anthony’s Central. Believe me, this man’s dead.”

  CJ had been at the fairgrounds for almost an hour without spotting either Gaylord Marquee or Petey Greene when word began to circulate through the crowd that a license-plate collector from Denver had been killed in an accident on his way to the event.

  Thinking at first that the victim might have been Marquee, CJ stopped at a booth in the midst of the buzz to ask the vendor, a bearded man wearing a top hat and sporting 1870s-style muttonchop sideburns, if he knew who the victim was.

  “Sure,” the man said. “A little colored fellow name’a Petey Greene. Talked too much, but not a bad sort. Too bad—yep, really too bad.”

  “Shit!” CJ slammed a fist into his open palm.

  “Take it you knew him,” the man said in response.

  “Since grade school.” CJ pivoted and broke into an all-out sprint for his car as the man in the top hat stared in amazement at how quickly a six-foot-three, 230-pound man could move.

  Rosie Weeks, Etta Lee, Marguerite, Petey Greene’s mother, and DeeAnn were all standing in Ike’s office by the time CJ got home. On the way, he’d stopped for nearly an hour at the site of the hit-and-run, where a bevy of cops was still on scene, and had even driven what he believed to be the killer’s escape route on the access road that paralleled the freeway a couple of times before a cop from whom he’d tried to get information had told him in no uncertain terms to move on.

  Syrathia Greene, who’d just come from identifying Petey’s body at the Denver General Hospital city morgue, was standing stupefied in front of Ike’s desk, one arm locked in Rosie’s, when CJ walked in.

  Ignoring CJ as he stood looking helpless in the office doorway, Rosie said, “Don’t think Mrs. Greene’s gonna take no for an answer, Ike.”

  “You all know I don’t do that kind of investigatin’ no more,” Ike shot back.

  “You ran down Nobby Pittman for killin’ Marguerite’s boy, Billy,” Rosie countered.

  Ike stared at CJ but aimed his response at Rosie. “That was five-and-a-half years ago, and CJ’s the one did all the legwork on that case, not me.” He broke into a series of coughs.

  “Then maybe CJ should handle looking into Petey’s killing,” said DeeAnn, surprising everyone with the straightforward comment.

  “Hey, hey, hold on a second.” CJ stepped into the office and tossed his Stetson onto a wall hook. He was eye to eye with Syrathia when she slipped her arm out of Rosie’s, pulled a wad of bills out of her purse, and stuffed them into his left hand. “That’s five hundred dollars, Calvin. Find out who killed my Petey.”

  As CJ stood dumbfounded, he had the odd sense that he was headed somewhere he’d been before. The authoritative look on Ike’s face all but dared him to offer a refusal.

  “Oh, thank you, Calvin, baby!” Syrathia stepped over and smothered CJ in a hug. “It’s a cinch the cops won’t do much of anything. Petey was just another street hustler who finally got what was coming to him, as far as they’re concerned.”

  Caught in Syrathia’s bear hug and Ike’s continued stare, CJ eyed DeeAnn as he labored to breathe. Thinking, Welcome to my world, all he could do was flash DeeAnn an acquiescent smile.

  Chapter 21

  It was midafternoon and the skies had clouded over when CJ, looking for any inside dope he could get on the Petey Greene hit-and-run case, met his lifelong friend and the city’s chief morgue attendant, Vernon Lowe, at Dozens, the Lower Downtown breakfast and lunch eatery where Vernon ate at least three times a week. Their waitress, a Latina half Vernon’s age whom the womanizing morgue attendant had once dated, seemed eager to rush them out the door before the restaurant’s 3 p.m. closing time.

  “You guys want anything else?” she asked, sailing their check onto the table, where it lodged under CJ’s plate.

  “Nah,” said Vernon. “Full to the gills. Just gonna finish up my coffee.” He flashed the waitress a wink.

  Ignoring the wink, she said, “That’s because, as usual, you’re eating too late.” Her tone reflected the fact that she knew Vernon intimately. “You, too, CJ,
” she said, clearing the table.

  “Could be,” said Vernon, eyeing the dark-haired waitress from head to toe as she walked away. “Should’ve stuck with that woman,” he lamented.

  Having suffered through Vernon’s laments about his love life before, CJ simply said, “Yeah, Vernon. Sure.”

  “I ain’t shittin’ you, CJ. Me and Molita clicked. Just wasn’t the right time for either of us.”

  “Too many fish in the sea?” asked CJ, tossing one of the slightly built, flashy-dressing morgue attendant’s favorite sayings his way.

  Vernon smiled. “Yeah, I need to remember that, especially when I see that tush on Molita.” He took a sip of coffee and drummed his fingers on the table.

  Hoping that their discussion of the hit-and-run accident that had cost Petey Greene his life might yield a few more nuggets of information, CJ asked, “So the cops are saying whoever plowed Petey into that median did it on purpose?”

  “Not the cops, CJ. Only one cop’s even been around to sort out things. Ol’ Doc Woodley’s the one sayin’ Petey’s death wasn’t no accident. Him and that pathology-resident friend of yours, Henry Bales, who came by. He’s on a two month hematopathology rotation here at DG. They’re both singin’ the same song.”

  Woodley, the keen-eyed, Cuban-cigar-smoking Denver City and County coroner and an old poker-playing buddy of Ike’s, was a man CJ had known since childhood. CJ had absolutely no reason to doubt him, and Henry Bales, who was in the second year of a four-year pathology residency, of course, he trusted with his life. “What are they basing their suspicions on?” asked CJ.

  “Mostly on the fact that we found just about every bone in poor old Petey’s body fractured when we did the post. And I mean compound-type fractures with bones pokin’ outa the skin.”

  “Thought you said earlier Petey died from a fractured skull.”

  “He did. But that ain’t the point. The point is that for Petey to have all them push-through bone fractures like he did, the vehicle that slammed into him, at least accordin’ to Doc Woodley, would’ve had to’a been gainin’ speed when it hit him. On top of that, the one cop who dropped by the morgue just after we finished postin’ Petey was a homicide type. After thumbin’ through all of Woodley’s postmortem notes, he told us both that there wasn’t a single tire mark anywhere on the pavement within fifty yards of where Petey was hit. Means the person drivin’ the vehicle wasn’t thinkin’ about brakin’.”