One Fell Swoop

by David Linzee

  “Is that smart?”

  “There are a lot of people who will cheer him for going after a snooty private university that likes to throw its weight around. And now we know why Muldaur wants Don so badly.”

  “For what Don can tell him about the Parkdale buy?”

  “Yes. The mayor’s looking for dirt to use against Reeve.”

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped in. Renata leaned against the wall. “Don hasn’t a prayer of getting away, has he?”

  “I would say he’s St. Louis’s most wanted man.”

  Peter had asked too much of his injured leg today. Pain shot from ankle to hip every time he took a step, no matter how hard he leaned on his cane. Going up the stairs to his apartment, he leaned on Renata instead, which was better.

  She settled him before the television, provided a stack of books on which to prop his foot, and an ice pack. She also offered to bring him aspirin. He said he’d take a shot of bourbon instead. When she brought it, he asked her what she was going to do now.

  “Nothing to do but sit by the phone.”

  “You might want a shot of bourbon, too.”

  She shrugged. Renata wasn’t much of a drinker. She went out of his sight, to sit on the bed. He heard the “thunk” as her cellphone dropped on the night table.

  Peter sipped and watched the news, flicking among the local stations. All led with the Adams story and the mayor’s statement. It was the chancellor’s bad luck that the story had one of those strong visuals television news producers loved: the two videos of campuses springing up in a matter of seconds, one in Kutar, the other in Parkdale. They came across as proof of Reeve’s megalomania. For proof of his hypocrisy, the newscasts showed bits of the speech from three days before in which Reeve talked about rehabbing Parkdale. Reeve’s failure to go on camera and make a strong denial played out just as disastrously as Roger had feared. A couple of stations ran interviews with Imani Baraku, who seemed dazed by what he had wrought. He wanted to talk about allowing the residents of Parkdale to stay in their homes, but the reporters were only interested in the video and how he had gotten hold of it. One station interviewed the mayor of College City, the suburb where the main campus of Adams U was located. She said that if the medical center was making a compensation payment to St. Louis, the main campus should make a bigger one to College City.

  Peter became aware that Renata was standing beside him. She had changed to jeans and a rain jacket. On her face was the resolute expression that he knew so well and that always struck fear into his heart. She said, “I’m going to look for Don. You can’t come. You’d only hold me up.”

  She headed for the door. Peter scrambled to his feet, knocking over the pile of books, and hopped after her. He got between her and the door and gripped both her arms.

  “You’re not going to talk me out of this, Peter.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I can’t sit here any longer waiting for the phone to ring.”

  “You have no choice.” Peter braced his back against the door and took the weight off his bad leg. “There’s nothing you can do. You don’t even know where to begin looking for him.”

  “I know exactly. Parkdale.”

  “Parkdale is the last place he’d go. He’ll know he’s sure to get caught there.”

  “He has to risk it. He needs his fake passport. The one hidden in his apartment.”

  Peter was jolted. He’d forgotten the fake passport.

  “He’ll be wanting to get out of the country,” she went on, “and he’s clever enough to twig that the St. Louis Police have put his real passport on a Homeland Security watch list. He’d be arrested at the airport.”

  “Instead he’ll be arrested at his apartment. The cops have a surveillance van in front of his building.”

  “I must talk to him.”

  “Why? To warn him? Renata, do you want to help him get away?”

  “I know I have to talk to him. I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  “You’ll only get arrested with him.”

  “Then I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to say.”

  Peter realized that it was hopeless. But he kept on talking. “Muldaur warned you to stay out of the way. If you go to Parkdale, you will end up in jail.”

  “Poetic justice. I’m the one who set the cops on my brother.”

  “It was the right thing to do. He’s a fucking crook.”

  “He’s not.”

  Peter let go her arms and hung his head. “God, how I love you,” he said miserably. “You’re magnificent even when you’re totally deluded.”

  He turned and began to limp back to his chair. “I’ll have my phone in my hand. They’ll let you call from Central Booking.”

  He heard the door open and close, and her footfalls on the stair, and she was gone.

  Chapter Thirty

  Renata slowed down entering Parkdale. Its street layout was the usual American grid, so she could tell when she was one block from Don’s building. She turned into the alley that ran through the middle of the block between the backs of the buildings, switched off her headlights and slowed to a crawl. Peter had told her the police had a van in front of the building, so she would approach from the rear. Of course, by now they were probably watching the back of the building, too. Halfway along the block, she pulled into a parking space. She would go the rest of the way on foot.

  It was a cold night with low clouds that threatened rain and strong, shifting winds that drove the trash in the alley toward her. Cans and Styrofoam cups clattered past her feet. Papers sailed by her head. A gust tried to snatch her cap; she caught it by the bill and pushed it down hard. She paused next to the brick wall of a garage and looked at the back of Don’s building. Her right hand, deep in her pocket, held the key to his door that Hannah had given her. Once she got in, she would see if the false passport was still in its hiding place in the umbrella stand. If not, she would head straight for the airport. If so, she would wait for Don to show up.

  But first she had to cross the backyard and climb the fire escape to the second floor. There were buildings on either side; the police could be sitting at any of their darkened windows, watching. By the time she unlocked Don’s door, they would be running up the fire escape to arrest her.

  She heard a cough. No, a coughing fit—loud, hacking, phlegmy—that went on and on. It was coming from the other side of the brick wall. This was Don’s garage, and she remembered that Peter had told her a street person slept here some nights. What was his name? Wayne, that was it.

  She stepped around the wall, into the open-fronted garage. She could see big cardboard boxes lined up parallel to the back wall. Lacking Don’s Jaguar, the man had made a barrier of his own. She called, “Wayne?”

  His head appeared: long, lank, gray hair, wide open eyes and mouth. “I got the owner’s permission,” he said hoarsely, as if he hadn’t spoken in weeks.

  “Yes, Don’s. He’s my brother. Have you seen him?”

  Wayne shook his head. “No. He don’t park here no more.”

  He sounded frightened. She thought he wasn’t telling the truth. She drew closer. It would be a mistake to break through his barrier of boxes, she thought, so she crouched down next to it. Her eyes were now level with Wayne’s. “He was here tonight, wasn’t he?”

  Wayne looked away.

  “Did he ask you to go up to his apartment? Get something for him?”

  “No.”

  “No he didn’t ask, or no you wouldn’t do it? Please tell me. I’m nothing to do with the police. I’m his sister. I talk like him. You can hear my accent, can’t you?”

  He had twisted his head as far away from her as he could. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’s been good to you. You would have helped him if you could.”

  “ ’Course I would.”

  “He was here. What happened?”

  “What he wanted was crazy. He said go in the front door. They won’t kn
ow which apartment you’re going to. They’ll think you’re a tenant.” Wayne clawed his beard and grasped his greasy shirt. “I said no, man. Looking like this? They’ll know I’m from the street. They’ll think I stole the keys. They’ll put me in the car and take me to the station. Ask me a lot of questions I can’t answer.”

  “What did Don say?”

  “Nothing. He went away.”

  “When was this?”

  Wayne didn’t answer.

  “When was Don here?”

  “Before I went to sleep.”

  That could have been hours or minutes. Renata thought she wasn’t going to get any more out of him. She thanked him, straightened up, and went out into the wind. After a moment of indecision, she headed back to her car. She was hoping that it hadn’t been long since Don had been here, that he was still in the area. She would drive around and try to spot him.

  She drove slowly, scanning the sidewalks. Despite the weather, there were a lot of people out. Parkdale, having received notice of its doom, was restless. Jackson’s corner boys were at their stations and doing business. Knots of people sat on the front steps of buildings or stood next to parked cars, talking. A group of teenagers swaggered down the middle of the street. As Renata drove slowly toward them, a police car pulled up next to them and the cop shouted at them to use the sidewalk. They ignored him. He drove on anyway. She carefully drove around them.

  Stopping at the next intersection, she noticed a man standing motionless on the sidewalk, head bowed and fists clenched. Suddenly he threw his head back and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Fuck Reeve!” She drove on, past a parked car. A mound of nuggets rested on the road next to its door: broken safety glass. Its window had been shattered.

  She was almost at the intersection with the commercial strip. Its lights and traffic were inviting, but she was more likely to find Don lurking in the alley. She turned in and drove slowly past the backs of buildings, telephone poles, and Dumpsters. Her headlights glittered on the bright steel of a shopping cart. It was being pushed slowly toward her by a hunched-over man. He was a Dumpster-diver, and the cart was packed with his finds. She flicked on her high beams. Atop the mound was a soft tan briefcase that she recognized.

  Renata threw the gear lever into park and jumped out of the car. The man was turning his cart away, preparing to beat a retreat, but she grasped it with her left hand and picked up the briefcase with her right. It was a canvas briefcase with a shoulder strap and loops that held a folding umbrella. She turned it over and saw the monogram: DPR.

  “It was in the trash,” the man was saying. “Don’t belong to nobody.” He snatched it from her hands, then got between her and his cart. He was a stocky African American, or maybe he was just well padded against the cold in several layers of clothes. He had a pungent odor. Missing teeth gave him a fierce appearance. “Leave it alone,” he shouted at her. “It’s empty.”

  It had not felt empty, but trying to open it and have a look would cause trouble. “Where did you find it?”

  “I forget.”

  “No,” she said mildly. “It’s on top. You found it just a short time ago. You remember.”

  The man scowled. He turned and pointed. “Down there. Last Dumpster at the end of the block. Never found anything but greasy napkins and paper plates in there before. From the BBQ place.”

  She ran to the car and backed up to the street. Turning onto the commercial strip, she drove down it to an electric sign that outlined a smiling pig.

  A man in a pink pig costume was standing on the curb waving a sign that said “RIBS $12.95!” That would be Herb. Peter had told her about him. She parked and crossed the street.

  “Hello, Herb.”

  The pig mask, with a big grin beneath the snout and button eyes, turned her way. The man’s eyes, visible through small holes in the mask, were narrowed and wary. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Peter’s girlfriend.”

  “Oh yeah. Guy from the neighborhood newsletter. Tell him to come back. Write about my booming business.”

  He turned, showing his curly tail, and pointed his trotter at the bright window of the restaurant. Every table was empty.

  “It isn’t a night when people feel like eating out, I guess,” Renata said. “Maybe you should pack it in.”

  “I have to make the most of every day I got left before Adams U kicks me out,” he said. “I owe two thousand bucks on the smoker. And that’s just the beginning of my debts.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My fucking landlord promised me I was gonna be here for years.”

  “Don Radleigh?”

  “What have you got to do with Don?”

  “I’m his sister. I’m trying to find him. Is he inside?”

  The pig head jerked as the man inside it flinched. “No,” he said.

  “But you’ve seen him.”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Yes, tonight. Not long ago.”

  He walked away, leaving her looking at the back of the pig head and its floppy ears as he held up his sign to a passing car, which kept on going. Over his shoulder he said, “Fuckin’ Don talked me into buying that smoker instead of renting. He said, ‘You’ll save in the long run.’ ” He had dropped into a credible imitation of Don’s breezy, upper-class voice. “ ‘You’ll be in this location for years. Not you personally—you’ll have franchised your concept and be living in Florida, happy as a pig in shit. Ha-ha!’ ”

  “Hey, what’s going on?” asked a tentative voice.

  It was a weedy young man, standing at the door of the next shop down. The sign above his head said “Cold Comfort Ice Cream Emporium.” He approached cautiously, hands plunged deep in the pockets of his apron.

  “Go back to your customers, Ethan,” said Herb. “There’s nothing going on here.”

  “Don’t have any. Is there some trouble? I told you there was gonna be trouble.”

  “Shut up.”

  Renata faced Ethan squarely and met his eye. He looked away. “I’m Renata Radleigh, Don’s sister. And I want to know how his briefcase ended up in the Dumpster behind this building.”

  Ethan dropped his eyes and muttered to Herb, “I told you.”

  “We don’t have to say anything.”

  “I’m not here to make trouble for you. I’m only looking for my brother.”

  Herb let the trotter holding the sign drop. With his other he waved them into his restaurant. She followed the oversize head with the ears that flopped at each step.

  Inside, the place smelled deliciously of searing pork and spicy sauces that no one was going to eat. Herb lifted off the head and threw it down on the nearest empty table. His thinning hair was sweat-soaked, as was his moustache. He had heavy bags under his eyes.

  “Half an hour ago, about, I was out there waving my sign and I see a guy with a briefcase cross the street. I can’t believe it at first, but it’s him, all right. So I get Ethan here, and we agree we’re gonna give Don an affectionate sendoff. Tell him what a difference he made in our lives. By the time he sees us it’s too late to run. So he gives us that shit-eating grin and says, ‘What’s it to be, tar and feathers?’ We grab him and march him across the street and into Ethan’s place. He kept up the jokes the whole way.”

  “It was just the three of us,” said Ethan. “I had to let my employees go.”

  “He hadn’t been around much lately, so we filled him in on what the last few days in the neighborhood had been like. How happy we were about Adams U buying us up.

  “We thought all these buildings would be full of students and hospital workers. People with lots of money and no time to cook. We had it made. And then today we find out, nobody’s gonna live here. Adams U is gonna evict us and flatten the buildings. We’ll be left with nothing but our debts.”

  “Adams U isn’t going to evict you. The Medical Park isn’t going to happen.”

  “We saw the goddamn video. That asshole Reeve had his secret plan all along. Don was denying it all, of course.
Said he knew nothing about any Medical Park.”

  “It’s not Reeve’s plan and Don didn’t know about it.”

  “Aw, come on! Don knew months ago that Reeve was gonna buy up Parkdale. You’re telling me he didn’t know why?”

  She was wasting her time. She said, “What did you do to him?”

  They both looked at her, then away. Ethan said, “He walked out of here on his own power. He’s fine.”

  “But you hit him.”

  “No. I held him. Herb hit him.”

  “I wouldn’t’ve done it if he just admitted the truth. That he was playing us for suckers all along. But he kept giving us the same shit about how he was trying to do the best for Parkdale. For us. He was as surprised as we were by the Medical Park.”

  “How badly is he hurt?” she asked levelly.

  “He’s a little bloody, that’s all. You can’t throw a decent punch in this fuckin’ outfit.”

  “I let him go and he ran,” said Ethan. “We didn’t mean to rob him. He just left the briefcase. So we threw it away.”

  “It was a stupid, ugly thing you did,” Renata said. “You’re starting to feel bad already, aren’t you? Get used to it. Don’s done you nothing but good. There isn’t going to be a Medical Park. Adams will rehab the neighborhood, and you will be happy as pigs in shit.”

  She brushed past Herb and went out the door. She must not allow herself to imagine Don staggering into the turbulent night, covering his bloody face with his arm. It would only upset her and there was no time. The only question that mattered was where had he gone, and she could think of only one possible answer.

  She got back in her car and drove to Hannah’s.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Leaving the car at the curb, she ran up the front walk and pressed Hannah’s buzzer. As she waited, she could hear distant pops. Her English mind produced the possibilities of car backfires or firecrackers or planks dropping on cement. But no. This was America and they were gunshots. Sirens were wailing thinly, far away, as plaintive as a baby crying. Behind her a car went by slowly, blasting rap. She pressed the button again. There was no response. Some instinct made her look up, and there was Hannah at her second-floor window. She stepped back and let the curtain fall. This was the last straw for Renata. She put her thumb on the buzzer and left it there.