by Robert Greer
Uttering a phrase that he used only when he’d plucked a rare gem from a slush pile, Mario said, “Jesus wept. Now maybe I’ll let you have a couple of those second-stringers that I keep downstairs, on the cheap.”
“Wish I could take you up on that,” said CJ disappointedly. “But I’m pretty much tapped out.”
“Figured that, with the bombing and all, but the darkest hour’s always before the dawn. Things’ll work out. If they don’t, come see me. There’s a story about Ike and me I’ve never told you. A story that someday you’re gonna need to hear.”
CJ flashed Mario a look of surprise. It had only been in the past year that he had learned that Mario and Ike had been friends, and he couldn’t imagine what the 1950s Italian crime boss and a black bail bondsman could have had in common besides their gambling jones, their love of jazz, and the fact that they rubbed shoulders with similar clientele.
“I will,” said CJ, his tone dismissive. Stories about Ike usually saddened him.
Mario nodded and smiled knowingly. He’d spent a lifetime sizing up loan sharks and weekend sinners, hit men, and whores, and he could still read the minds of crooked politicians and sniff out flag-waving crew cuts from the FBI in a crowd. Zeroing in on CJ’s thoughts was minor league. “In a lot of ways you’re just like him. In other ways you’re not.” Mario watched CJ run his hand across the license plate again, this time almost affectionately, and said, “So what’s this business you said you needed me to help you with? And mind you, now, you know the rules. I’m in the furniture business, Calvin. Nothing else.”
“I know,” said CJ, cognizant of Mario’s rules and aware that overstepping Mario’s boundaries could end their friendship. There could be no talking about what Mario had done in the past, no mention of Mario’s money-grubbing lawyer of a nephew who wanted the man carted off to a nursing home, and never, ever a word about Mario’s late wife, Angie. “I need the lowdown on some folks.”
“The ones you think might’ve blown up your store?”
“Nope.”
Mario looked surprised. “You mean you ain’t looking for the people who did the place?”
“I am. But that’s a different matter.”
Confused, Mario asked, “Then whattaya after?”
“A killer. Somebody who stole a photograph worth a million bucks.”
“Ummm. Got any names for me to take a crack at?”
“Oliver Lyman,” said CJ, starting at the top of his list. “He’s a college-professor type.”
“Never heard of him.”
“How about Loretta Sheets? She’s a museum curator up in Cheyenne.”
Mario shook his head. “Never heard of her either.”
“Theodore Counts?”
“Nope.”
CJ paused, having saved the name he hoped would trigger recognition from Mario until last. “Arthur Vannick?”
Mario’s eyes narrowed. “You know the rules, Calvin.”
“I know the rules, Mario. Just hear me out.”
“Okay, but you’re pushing the envelope.”
“Do you know him?”
“I know of him.”
CJ hesitated, uncertain how to couch his next question. “Vannick claims he’s got ties to the kind of people who count. Connected types, if you get my drift.”
“I wouldn’t know any of those kind of people,” said Mario, his tone suddenly distant.
CJ smiled. “Never figured a legitimate furniture-store owner like you would. But I thought you might be able to steer me toward somebody who might. I’m looking for a killer, Mario. I don’t know if Vannick’s my man, but I know one thing for certain. The people he claims he’s connected to don’t take kindly to people who lie about their affiliations.”
“I’ve heard that,” said Mario. “Liars. They’re the worst kind of people.” He turned, walked over to a nearby table, retrieved a photograph, walked back, and handed the photograph to CJ. “Know who that is in the photograph with me?” he said, watching CJ eye a photograph that showed a much younger, fiftyish Mario standing next to a man who looked to be in his early twenties. Both men were dressed in expensive-looking summer-weight pinstripe suits.
“No,” CJ said.
“My fucking nephew, Rollie.”
CJ’s face went slack, uncertain where Mario, who’d just broken his own iron-clad rule, was headed.
Mario took the picture back and replaced it on the table. “Like I said, liars, they’re the worst kind of people. When Angie died, the SOB in that picture promised me that he’d always be there to look after me. He lied. I keep that picture around to remind me of that. All he’s done for the past five years is to try and get me locked away in some shithole nursing home. Thinks he can get my money. Fucker!” Mario eyed CJ sternly. “He lies about his Sicilian roots because he’s embarrassed by them. He lies about his education, says he went to Stanford Law when he went to LA State. And he lies to his wife. He’s got a woman he keeps, a little Mexican girl, down in Colorado Springs. To sum it all up, he’s a shitfaced snot without any sense of the past, and in my book, Calvin, that’s the worst kinda somebody you can be.”
The look on Mario’s face had turned vengeful. “I’m bending a cardinal rule here, Calvin, and I want you to always remember that. I’m gonna hook you up with somebody who’ll set you straight about your Mr. Vannick. Somebody who did a tour of duty in the military the same time as you during that little skirmish of ours over in Southeast Asia a while back. Somebody you already know.”
Looking puzzled, CJ asked, “Who’s that?”
Mario smiled. “Pinkie Niedemeyer.”
CJ’s jaw dropped as Mario added, “And don’t worry about finding him; he’ll find you.” As far as Mario was concerned, the subject was closed, and CJ knew there’d be no more mention of Mario’s backstabbing nephew or Pinkie Niedemeyer that day.
“Now, let’s take a closer look at that Chickasha plate,” said Mario, picking up the license plate. “Four thousand bucks on five hundred. Now, that’s how a man should use his money.” He broke into a broad, toothy grin and handed the license plate lovingly to CJ.
A few minutes later, deep in thought, a cheroot tucked loosely in the corner of his mouth, CJ eased the Bel Air away from Satoni’s. He’d figured all along that anyone who boasted about being a wiseguy almost assuredly wasn’t one, but he’d never imagined that Mario, thirty-five years removed from the heyday of his underworld entanglements, would be so offended by Vannick’s boast. He had Rollie Orsetti, Mario’s nephew, to thank for that.
Breaking into a self-satisfied smile, he turned up the volume on the bluesy B. B. King lament he was listening to and cruised up 23rd Avenue past an empty, forlorn-looking Coors Field, the baseball park that was only weeks away from another certain Colorado Rockies losing season. His smile faded as he thought about the fact that he’d now have Pinkie Niedemeyer, arguably the Italian underworld’s top Rocky Mountain “settlement agent,” dogging his ass.
Pinkie no doubt would savor the opportunity, enjoying the fact that he’d picked the time, the place, and the circumstances under which the two would talk. CJ expected that the rail-thin, curly-headed hit man, who’d been dyeing his prematurely gray hair black almost from the day he’d returned home from Vietnam, would probably stretch out the detail, hoping to make CJ sweat a little.
As CJ turned right onto Broadway, nosing the Bel Air south for a meeting with Lenny McCabe, he wondered how he’d cope with being shadowed by Niedemeyer and quite possibly stalked at the same time by Celeste. Funny the way things play out, he thought, accelerating past a string of South Broadway fast-food eateries as B. B. reached the end of his rueful song.
The song’s sorrowful words stuck in CJ’s head all the way down Broadway, never ending until he pulled into Lenny McCabe’s brother’s used-car lot.
CHAPTER 21
Flora Jean and Alden Grace recognized that they both stood out, and neither of them liked it much. But they’d long ago learned to deal with the idiosyncrasies of
a black-white love affair, coming to grips with the fact that a tall, buxom black woman walking hand in hand with a six-foot-four-inch, square-jawed, blue-eyed white man with a crew cut would certainly—during their lifetime and perhaps forever—draw stares in America.
Even though they’d fought a war together, participated in life-threatening clandestine intelligence games, engaged in tension-filled life-and-death pitty-pat with heads of state, and once made love in the midst of a raging oil fire in the Persian Gulf, Flora Jean had never been able to come to grips with the fact that she had fallen in love with a white man.
As Grace carried the bag of groceries they’d purchased for an early-evening barbecue at Flora Jean’s across a crowded supermarket parking lot—a barbecue that Flora Jean had been promising him for more than a week—two black teenagers zoomed past them on skateboards. After eyeing Flora Jean, the smaller of the two boys glanced back briefly at Grace, flashed Grace the high sign, and yelled, “Big and fine, my man.” Grace grinned as the boy skateboarded away.
Never comfortable with being a sex object, though it was something she’d endured all her life, Flora Jean simply shook her head.
“He’s only calling it like he sees it,” Grace said with a smile. “Didn’t realize you had such a grip on the young.”
“I don’t.” Flora Jean reached out and squeezed Grace’s hand. “I work my magic on the old and infirm,” she said to the athletic-looking former general, who was sixteen years older than she.
“I see,” said Grace. “Well, my dear Sergeant, we’ll see just how magical you are later on.”
“That we will,” said Flora Jean, pouting sensually and giving Grace a wink as they reached his pickup, a camper-topped silver extended-cab that had had its bed modified to handle the surveillance and intelligence endeavors that Grace still occasionally found himself involved in. Grace opened a rear door and placed the groceries on the backseat as Flora Jean skirted the front of the vehicle to get in on the other side. Grace had just shut the door when a voice at the rear of the truck called out, “Ms. Benson? I’d like to speak to you for a moment, if I may.”
Flora Jean looked back to see Fritz Commons moving toward her. He was four paces away when Alden Grace stepped between them. Eye to eye with Commons, Grace said, “Can I help you?” His words were meant to bite.
“Alden!” Flora Jean’s voice rose an octave as she grabbed the former general by the hand.
His right hand jammed into the left inside pocket of his jacket, Commons took a half step back.
“Do you know this guy, Flora Jean?”
“Yes.” Flora Jean stepped between the two men, nudging Grace aside. “Sergeant Fritz Commons, I’d like you to meet General Alden Grace.”
“General,” said Commons.
“Sergeant.”
“What can I help you with, Sergeant?” asked Flora Jean, watching Commons slip his hand out of his jacket pocket.
“I’m hoping you can help me with a problem that’s cropped up,” said Commons.
“Which is?”
“Another homicide. One that has a real solid link to you.”
“I don’t remember killin’ anybody recently,” Flora Jean said with a smile.
“Don’t get flip, Ms. Benson. We can have an informal chat here in the parking lot or a more formal discussion downtown.”
“Here’s just fine.”
“Appreciate the cooperation,” Commons said sarcastically. “Do you know a man named Oliver Lyman?”
“Yes. He your murder victim?”
“Yes.” Commons glanced at Grace. “Since none of this concerns you, General, why don’t you have a seat in the truck?”
“If it concerns Flora Jean, it concerns me.”
“The truck, General,” Commons reiterated.
“Alden, it might be smart,” said Flora Jean.
Well schooled in police procedure and realizing the risk Flora Jean took by talking off the record, Grace shook his head defiantly. “We’re going downtown.”
“But Alden …”
“Downtown, Flora Jean.”
“You heard the man, Sergeant. I guess we’re goin’ downtown.”
“Happy to accommodate,” Commons said, uncertain what hold the authoritative-sounding general had on Flora Jean and wanting to know more. “You can both come.” He nodded in the direction of an unmarked police car one row over.
“What about our barbecue?” Flora Jean said disappointedly to Grace as they headed for the cruiser.
“It can wait.” Grace thought about the first POWs his intelligence teams had interrogated during the Persian Gulf War, recalling that the toughest nuts to crack were always those who volunteered to be questioned and aware that the POWs always seemed to come away from those interrogations learning something too. Helping Flora Jean into the cruiser, Grace whispered, “Remember, Flora Jean, first man up always tells the least.”
Flora Jean winked and slipped into the backseat of the police cruiser as Grace followed.
“Got a refrigerator where we’re headed?” Grace asked.
“Sure do,” said Commons. “And a microwave and dinnerware too. Just about everything you need to set up housekeeping, but I don’t think we’ll be that long.” Commons cranked the cruiser’s engine. Glancing across the seat back, he flashed a smile. “But then, you never really know how long anything’s gonna take these days, do you?”
“Twenty-three, twenty-four.” CJ sounded winded as he counted out the last of the $2,400 Rosie Weeks had lent him onto the dust-covered, coffee-stained table and shoved the money toward the waiting hands of Lenny McCabe. “We’re even.”
“Yeah.” McCabe divided the money into smaller stacks, sat forward in his seat, and, shoving the cash into his front pants pocket, despondently repeated, “Even. I’ve got a bombed-out building, no inventory, half an ounce of hope, and twenty-four hundred bucks. That should take me places.”
“Better than me,” CJ countered, glancing around the small room they were seated in. A room that reeked of oil and rancid automotive-shop rags. A rathole of a room inside a double-wide trailer that listed to the right; a room in which Lenny McCabe’s used-car-selling brother closed his car deals, ate most of his meals, fornicated, and commiserated.
The trailer, parked in the middle of the used-car lot, was less than a mile from Ike’s Spot. Triple A Auto Sales had been Lenny’s last stop on a downward spiral of dead-end jobs before he’d accidentally stumbled into the antiques business. Storeless now, and with little more than CJ’s $2,400 to his name, Lenny was back where he’d started, inhaling the nauseating smell of soil, sweat, and his brother’s semen.
McCabe patted his pockets, making certain the money was still there, and eyed CJ. “My insurance company’s balking at picking up the tab for that bombing. What about yours?”
“Same thing. They’re looking into whether the bombing was an act of terrorism. If they can nudge it into that bailiwick, they won’t have to shell out a dime. But mostly they’re stalling, just like yours. At least most of my inventory’s intact. Sure sorry about your half of the building taking the brunt of it.”
“Fuckin’ bastards. They don’t want a poor man to ever make a dime. But trust me, we’ll ride this thing out.” McCabe eyed CJ sympathetically. “At least I don’t have some bitch with a wild hair up her ass looking to dust my ass.”
“At least,” said CJ, surprised that McCabe wasn’t more upset over the fact that their predicament could be placed squarely on his doorstep. They had talked at length, and although they both assumed there could still be an off chance that the bombing was tied to the Del Mora murder, they’d pretty much settled on the conclusion that Celeste Deepstream had been the one pulling the bomber’s strings. “I’m sorry about what happened,” CJ reiterated.
“Shit happens. Hell, I’ve been on the bottom rung before.” He looked around the room. “I used to eat, sleep, piss, party, and pick my toenails in this shithole. Ain’t like I’ve never seen the sewer trap before. I’m just ho
ping that those insurance boys come through before we’re both out of business too long. You lose your client base in the business we’re in, and you’re dead.”
Surprised at McCabe’s resiliency, CJ asked, “What if our insurance companies decide to kick us to the curb, invoke the terrorist-clause fine print? The bomber was an Arab, after all.”
“They wouldn’t dare. Shit, I don’t have any terrorist links. Do you?”
“Are you crazy, Lenny?”
McCabe let out a hollow laugh. “See where despair takes you?” he said, looking relieved. “Now, if you don’t mind me taking the liberty, let me offer up some advice. I know you spent half your life dealing with skaters and criminals, con men and cops. But I’d wager you never had to deal with them under our current circumstances.”
Uncertain where McCabe was headed with his advice, CJ said, “No.”
“So listen up. Right now we’re at the mercy of insurance companies, city bureaucracy, whatever friends we got, and cops. And we’re gonna have to, at least temporarily, play their game.” McCabe paused and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I see you moved most of your goods out of your space.”
“Yeah.”
McCabe shook his head. “Big mistake. Should’ve left the stuff. Now Sergeant Commons has a reason to ride your ass, ticket you, so to speak, for any kinda minor infraction, rub your nose in it because you violated one of his crime-scene rules.”
“Screw Commons. Just about everything I owned in the world that was worth anything was inside a building with a hole the size of a car in the back wall waiting to be carted off by some enterprising thief.”
“I know that. I just would’ve handled it differently. Greased a few palms, talked to one of Commons’s superiors, got myself some bullshit semblance of a permission before I did what you did. Couldn’t have hurt.”
“I did what I had to, Lenny.”
“So you did. But here’s what I don’t want you doing next. I don’t want you screwing around with contractors or building inspectors or city engineers. And I don’t want you eyeballing the rebuild, second-guessing the construction, or looking too hard at who’s been hired to do the job. Okay?”