by Robert Greer
“You’ll end up doing time,” Sam said angrily.
CJ winked at Henry. “We’ve done time before, right, Bull Tamer?”
“The hardest kind,” Henry said, catching a glimpse of Rosie’s imposing figure as it filled the courthouse doorway.
“I kept Ike from going to prison for attempted murder,” Sam protested.
“So I’ve heard,” said CJ. “And you know what? I’m thinking you’ll have to take that up with him. Adios, jackass.” CJ turned and headed for the courthouse door.
“Didn’t leave yourself much room for reconciliation,” said Henry, matching him stride for stride.
“Didn’t plan to,” CJ said, looping his uninjured arm over Henry’s shoulders. “Sometimes there’s just no room for reconciliation between the North and the South. You and I both know that.”
Epilogue
“Never keep a gun you killed somebody with or a Suburban you ran somebody down with around,” Rosie Weeks said, looking past CJ and west from Ike Floyd’s gravesite toward the Rockies. “Poor Petey.”
“One other thing,” said CJ, who was kneeling next to Ike’s headstone, adjusting the huge bouquet of black-eyed Susans, Ike’s favorite flower, that Marguerite had sent with him to the cemetery. “Try not to brag to anyone about all the guns you’ve got protecting your store.”
He paused to stare down from Ike’s hillside grave onto row after row of headstones below. “Doesn’t seem like we buried him almost two months ago,” CJ said haltingly.
“He was the best,” Rosie said reassuringly.
Silent now, CJ glanced skyward toward a bank of flying-saucer-shaped clouds. Shifting his weight to one knee and standing, he asked, “Do you think we end up anywhere but in the dirt when it’s all said and done, Red?”
“We better. Otherwise Etta Lee’s gonna be one pissed-off lady,” Rosie said, hoping his lighthearted response would keep CJ from slipping back down the mountain of sorrow he’d been trying his best to scale for months. “How’s the shoulder, by the way?”
Rolling his injured left shoulder over and back, CJ said, “Fine. But it’s gonna be a legal problem for me here real soon.”
“How’s that?”
“Remember me telling you about that Arapahoe County DA, the Cuban-cigar-smoking little rat terrier with political ambitions that Sergeant Manson warned me about?”
“Yeah. You’ve told me about him and Manson. Isn’t he the guy who got you out from under breaking-and-entering and attempted-murder charges?”
“Yep. He’s the wonderful one,” CJ said sarcastically.
“So what’s he want?”
“His pound of flesh. He and the Denver DA are tag-teaming Harry Steed. They want me to testify against Steed in his murder trial and do a repeat performance when Marquee’s trial comes up. They’re going after Marquee as an accessory to murder even though he rolled on Steed, and even after Steed tried to set Marquee up for Petey’s murder by stashing that second damaged white Suburban in Marquee’s garage.”
“So how’s the shoulder fit in?”
“Mr. Rat Terrier DA says that in both cases the defense will try to impugn my testimony by characterizing me as nothing more than a trigger-happy Vietnam-vet wacko and car thief. He claims they’ll not only introduce my medical records to show how I injured my shoulder but that they’ll also bring in a string of witnesses who’ll claim I’ve had a hard time adjusting to life after the war. That new lawyer I replaced Sam Guterro with agrees.”
“That’s damn sure stretchin’ the shit outa the truth. What war did any of those lyin’ lawyer bastards ever fight in? You ask me, they need to put Steed under the jail and Marquee right there with him.”
“It’s America, Rosie. Innocent until proven guilty, remember?”
“My ass. That crazy-ass, license-plate-hoarding miser took away three people’s lives just so he could slap a bunch of rare license plates on a few old cars, go out to some metal barn hidden away in the woods, and cream in his pants while he’s lookin’ at his prizes like he’s at some strip joint droolin’ over naked women. Whacked-out son of a bitch, if you ask me.”
CJ laughed. “Don’t blow a gasket, Red. Think of it like this: there’re plenty of folks out there who are crazier.”
“Guess so,” Rosie said, stretching out his already wide-legged stance on the hillside. “Anybody saying why Marquee kept his mouth shut all those years about Steed killin’ Ames and that Chinaman?”
“Money. What else? But not in the way of cold, hard cash. From what I’m hearing, two of the eight cars that were in that Quonset hut had their titles transferred from Steed to Marquee several years back, and that means that thirty or forty grand floated Marquee’s way without any cash ever changing hands.”
“Slick way of launderin’ hush money,” said Rosie.
“But not slick enough. All that goes around comes around,” said CJ, smiling as he used one of Ike’s favorite phrases. “The Denver DA’s got Cheryl Goldsby in line to testify against Steed and Marquee as well. She’s being primed to spill her guts about how Marquee sold off a bunch of her uncle’s other rare license plates for her. Plates that Steed never got his hands on when he stole most of Wiley’s collection. Plates that Marquee bought from Goldsby for a song and then resold. I ended up with one of them, that rare 1909 Monte Vista municipal tag I told you about. It’s what started my whole investigation rolling, really.”
Nodding, Rosie said, “How long before they go to trial?”
“Four to six months, I’ve been told. It’ll take the prosecution that long to build their case and to cement the link between Chin and Steed. There’s no question that Molly Burgess, that cellist girlfriend of Goldsby’s, can prove Steed knew Chin, so that’s a start. Turns out Marquee and Chin really were also moving stolen seashells through GI Joe’s with Harry Steed’s 10 percent cut of a blessing. Another nice little financial plum for Marquee. Now, here’s an eye-opener for you. The reason Burgess knew Chin, and why she can prove a Chin to Steed connection, is because before she hooked up with Cheryl Goldsby and came out of the closet; she was Chin’s girlfriend. That’s why she avoided me all those times I tried to get in touch with her. She didn’t know what I was after, and she didn’t want her straight-world past catching up with her gay-world future and maybe wrecking her relationship with Goldsby.”
“What a frickin’ double-dealin’ mess. And all of it endin’ up in a murder trial that’ll cost us taxpayers a bundle. They’re all passengers on a goddamn perverted ship of fools, you ask me. No matter, though,” Rosie said, scratching his head. “As long as Steed and Marquee end up gettin’ theirs in the end, Steed for killin’ Ames, Chin, and poor old Petey and Marquee for helpin’ him do it, I’m okay. As for love havin’ anything to do with it, straight or gay, I’m guessin’ we all best grab on to that when we can. Think I’ve told you that before, though, my man.”
Aware of where Rosie was headed, CJ simply nodded.
Wagging his index finger at CJ, Rosie said, “I’m only gonna say this once. You choose bad, you end up sad. I’d be gettin’ my ducks in order with Mavis if I were you and forgettin’ the hell about DeeAnn.”
“I’ve heard the sermon before, Rosie.”
“Yeah, but you evidently ain’t been listenin’. Every time I look up these days, you got DeeAnn hangin’ on your arm. Now, don’t get me wrong. She’s a decent enough person, and God knows she can turn heads, but trust me, CJ, she ain’t in Mavis’s class.”
Hoping to avoid getting into an argument with his best friend, CJ said, “It’s a rough time for me right now, Red. I’ve got estate problems pulling at me every day, a rocky business to keep afloat, and a seventy-five-thousand-dollar bond secured by everything I own in the world. A bond that lets me keep walking the streets and earning a living instead of twiddling away my days in jail.”
“Okay, I’ll cut you some slack. Just remember, when all the fog lifts, don’t make the mistake of choosin’ DeeAnn over Mavis.”
CJ stared down at Ike
’s dirt-covered gravesite and the few new blades of grass that had nosed their way up out of the soil and found himself thinking about what Ike had said about his own failures when it came to love. “Mavis is out of my league, Red.”
“Bullshit. You’re just lookin’ for some excuse to keep from risin’ above yourself. No matter. Mavis’ll be home from school in a few weeks. You’ll have time enough to think about where the two of you are headed.” Rosie dusted off his hands, indicating that he was done with the subject. “You gonna bring another bail bondsman in with you?”
“Not right now. Too stretched. Like I said, I had to put the Victorian up as collateral for my bond. Good thing Ike had the title to the place in joint tenancy.”
“He was lookin’ out for you.”
“Yeah.” CJ watched the bouquet of black-eyed Susans sway in the breeze. “He always was.” Staring off into the distance, misty-eyed, he said, “You ready to go?”
“Whenever you are.”
“Then let’s head out.” CJ stooped and fluffed up the flowers. Eyeing the headstone, he silently read, Isaac Tremaine Floyd, 1923–1977. For a brief second he thought the headstone was too plain, but as he glanced over his shoulder, face to the wind, and read the quotation near the tombstone’s bottom—Keep it simple: one, two, three—he realized that it was perfect.
Acknowledgments
I remain grateful for the support and dedication of my editor, Emily Boyd, and the very professional staff at North Atlantic Books. As always, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my secretary, Kathleen Woodley, who completed the final typed draft of First of State while burdened with a terrible cold and the recent death of her mother. I am appreciative of the help of Kathleen Deckler, who stepped in to help with the typing of the manuscript, while trying at the same time to decipher my cryptic handwriting. As always, Connie Oehring and Adrienne Armstrong both did first-rate jobs of copyediting.
My final heartfelt thanks are reserved for Jim Gummoe, whose knowledge about the world of collectible, and not so collectible, license plates is unsurpassed.
Portions of First of State appeared in much abbreviated form in the following copyrighted short stories by Robert Greer: “A Matter of Policy,” first published in Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stones by African-American Writers; and “Something in Common,” first published in the Rocky Mountain News in the collection of stories A Dozen on Denver.
About the Author
Robert Greer, a native of Columbus, Ohio, spent his formative years in the steel-mill town of Gary, Indiana. He graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree and subsequently earned degrees in dentistry, medicine, and pathology from Howard University and Boston University, as well as a master’s degree in creative writing, also from Boston University. He is a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In addition to authoring the C. J. Floyd Mysteries, Greer founded the High Plains Literary Review, where he serves as editor in chief, and has written medical texts and scientific articles. A longtime resident of Denver, he reviews books for a Denver NPR affiliate and raises cattle on a ranch in Wyoming.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert Greer
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4320-5
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