by A. W. Gray
“Bully for Dondi,” Bino said gruffly. He had the pants to his suit on, along with his white dress shirt minus the tie. His coat and tie were folded over his arm, and his other hand was shoved into his pocket. His clothes were rumpled and soiled from being stuffed into a bag in the jail basement. Bino now said to Jimmy Lankford, “Am I going to have to go to some kind of hearing, or what?”
Lankford was dressed in a robin’s egg blue summer-weight suit and carried a thin brown attache case. The sun had just risen above the skyscraper roofs, and the pavement and asphalt were quickly heating to egg-frying temperatures. “No, it’s over,” Lankford said. “We run down the street to the appellate court and they cut you loose. The district judge knows he can’t hold you more than overnight, and once the appeal guys free you the lower court forgets the whole thing. It’s just to remind the lawyer what can happen if you give the judge any lip. Half the lawyers in Houston have spent a night or two as a guest of the county.” Lankford chuckled. “At least you got to confer with your client, close-up.”
Bino rubbed his neck where it was stiff and sore from his sleeping on a rag-stuffed mattress without a pillow. “I didn’t even get to do that,” Bino said. “I didn’t get to see anybody but Marv Goldman. He was standing by the door when that deputy took me off in handcuffs, and he said, ‘Rough going, buddy.’ Wait till I run into that son of a bitch again.”
“Are you going back inside the jail to visit your client?” Lankford said. “Or have you had enough of Harris County for one day?”
“I’ve had enough of this place to last me a lifetime,” Bino said. He flicked a mote of dust from one of Carla’s suspender straps. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’ve already told Rusty that I’m not his lawyer any more after the bail hearing. That was before that phony judge denied us, though, so now I guess the fee I collected has to cover appealing the no-bond order to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. That’s going to take a couple of weeks, which means that Rusty’s stuck until we can be heard. Jesus, I’m not even sure if I can appeal. They ran the court reporter out of the room before they pulled all that crap.”
“I saw,” Lankford said. “That happens so often in Harris County that I can answer your question. You appeal on the fact that there wasn’t any record. The high court will remand, ordering another hearing with the court reporter present. Then they’ll do it on the record, have the same identical evidence, and deny bail a second time. You’ll have to appeal again, this time with a transcript, and the high court will reverse and order bail. But since you have to appeal twice, it means they can hold your boy twice as long.”
“Sounds like a long road for the good guys,” Bino said.
“It is,” Lankford said.
Bino dug out his wallet, extracted a business card, and handed the card over to Lankford. “Send a bill to my office, Jimmy. Oh, and hang loose for me, huh? Before this is over I’m going to need a lawyer with some local knowledge. Right now I think I’ll go over to the Houston Police Department and snoop around their evidence room. I want to look over the car they fished out of that canal and whatever stuff was with the body.” There was a tiny slip of paper in his wallet along with the business cards. It was the receipt the jail people had given him last night when they’d taken his valuables. “I don’t want any receipts from the Harris County Jail,” Bino said. “They’ll bring back crappy memories.” He rolled the paper into a ball to throw it away.
Carla stepped quickly forward. “Give me that,” she said. “I want Dondi to see it. You may not care what he thinks, but I have to perform with the guy.”
Buck Fuller had done a lot of thinking about the promotion he’d taken, leaving his job as a detective to be an investigator for the Harris County D.A.’s office, and had come up with one plus: the pay. If it wasn’t for the extra hundred bucks a month, he’d have gone to the sheriff and requested a demotion long ago.
Sitting in this fifteen-by-twenty office with a lovely view of the jail, and listening to two lawyers play one-up on each other, was a perfect example of what Fuller meant. As far as Detective Fuller was concerned, neither one of the lawyers was very smart. Not Assistant Harris County D.A. (for Dumbass) Roger Tiddle and not Assistant U.S.D.A. (for United States Dumbass) Marvin Goldman. The fact that Goldman was federal, though, made all the difference in the world. Federal guys, Fuller thought, had everybody by the balls.
Roger Tiddle was saying, “By the time Fuller here gets through with his investigation, we should have something solid to go on.” Which about made Fuller swallow his bub-blegum.
“Getting something solid isn’t really that important. Not yet,” Goldman said, which made Fuller think better of the situation.
“We can’t just keep holding the guy,” Tiddle said. “Eventually push is going to come to shove.”
“You let us worry about that,” Goldman said. “Sure, the appellate court will make you grant bond. Eventually. But I figure we can delay that as much as a year. In the meantime Mr. Benson’s ass belongs to us.” The A.U.S.D.A. sat across from Tiddle. Tiddle tilted back with his feet up on the corner of his desk. Goldman’s legs were crossed. Detective Fuller was on the small two-seater couch near the door.
“A year or whatever,” Tiddle said. “Eventually it’s going to come down to it.” He looked to Fuller. “Detective, exactly what do we have on this guy?”
“In a word,” Fuller said, “not shit. What we’ve got is a dead lady submerged in an auto, and not a clue as to who put her there. Our federal friends told us where to find the body, but they won’t tell us how they happened to direct us to one particular canal when nobody’d even reported the broad missing. Good question, but I guess I’m out of line in bringing it up.” He lifted one thick leg and folded his hands over his knee.
“Well, you are out of line,” Goldman said. “All I can tell you is, national security.”
“Or national bullshit,” Fuller said, then wished he hadn’t.
Tiddle pointed a finger. “Listen, Buck.”
“I can let you in,” Goldman said, “that what we’re working on ... you remember Graylord?”
“The Chicago deal,” Tiddle said, “where all the cops and judges went to jail.”
“That’s all I can say,” Goldman said. “If it’s determined I can give you more, that’s a bridge we’ll cross.”
“We’re sure busting our ass to help out the Dallas people,” Fuller said. “How’s that helping us in Harris County?”
Goldman yanked on his goatee. “Well, it would be nice for you if the FBI doesn’t start the same kind of investigation down here. You get my drift?”
Tiddle folded his arms. Fuller stared at the floor.
“Look,” Goldman said, “the guy popped his old lady. I know it, you know it, he knows it. For now it’s not necessary for anybody to prove it. We’re working on that, we got this cop up in Dallas I think is about to tell us something.
“I don’t want you to get the idea anybody’s strong-arming you into anything,” Goldman said. “But you got to appreciate the importance. Here we got a guy we know damn well has
been spreading money around to cops, judges, and whoever else will take it, for a year and a half we know about, but we got zero evidence. Then, boom, one day his old lady finds out she’s had no exclusive license on the guy’s dick, and what do you know? She’s ready to talk to us, and man, does she have something to say. The guy had her popped, and there’s no higher priority for us than getting this guy.”
Roger Tiddle produced a handkerchief, blew his nose. “And your case up there against all those city cops … ”
“For now that’s on hold. Look, you guys work out?” Goldman sat up straighter, and Fuller’s jaw dropped in astonishment as the federal prosecutor actually flexed his back muscles under his tailored black suit. “It’s during the bench presses a lot of times that these things occur to me. One thing leads to another, you know?
So we jumped the gun a bit on that cop indictment, but that’s … okay. One of those cops is talking to us, and now we can work on Mr. Benson. We’re moving along.
“And Bino Phillips,” Goldman said, “Benson’s lawyer? He’s defending one cop, and now he’s got Rusty Benson to worry about. If nothing else, we got the other side disorganized. Bino Phillips has now got problems.”
“How did you like the problem the judge gave him?” Tiddle said.
“Hey, not bad,” Goldman said.
Fuller leaned back and rubbed his eyes. The guys were boring the shit out of him. “You federal folks want to talk to Rusty Benson?” Fuller said.
Goldman seemed deep in thought for a moment, then nodded his head. “Yeah, we do. We’re finding out things about him. Now it’s time to see what he has to tell us, as long as we’ve got an incentive to give him.”
“I got to tell you, Mr. Goldman,” Fuller said. “I get the impression that Mr. Benson’s a pretty tough cookie.”
Goldman yanked on his goatee. “They all are at first. Where you warehousing the guy?”
“He’s in lockdown on the eighth floor of the jail,” Tiddle said. “That’s where they keep all the capital murder guys.”
“They’ve got an arrangement like that in Dallas County,” Goldman said, “to separate what they call serious offenders. Private toilet, shower, all that shit?”
“Sure, yeah,” Tiddle said. “We’ve got to let the guy take a shower every day. The Constitution … ” He spread his hands, palms up.
“Fuck the Constitution,” Goldman said. “We’re trying to find out something from the guy. No, cancel that, I didn’t say anything about anybody’s constitutional rights. Everybody’s got ’em. But you’ve got to improvise. You got a guy handing out disposable razors, right?”
“Right. Guy with a cart, once a day.”
“Yeah, okay,” Goldman said. “When he gets to Mr. Benson’s cell he’s fresh out, beginning today. Then the water, there’ll be an individual cutoff for each cell if you’re built to national standards.”
“I suppose we are,” Tiddle said. “They have inspections every so often.”
“Sure,” Goldman said. “So you just cut Mr. Benson’s water off, and if he bitches about it, you know how tough it is to get a plumber. Let him go scraggly-faced and stinking, and late tonight we have a talk. And if that doesn’t work … ”
“I don’t know how much we’ve got to deal,” Fuller said. “I don’t think we can do a thing with him on the murder, unless he decides to confess.”
“He doesn’t know that for sure,” Goldman said. “If he doesn’t say anything the first night, you just get the sheriff to decide he needs Mr. Benson’s private cell for some really dangerous guys, and that Rusty Benson’s such a lamb he needs to be in general population. Put him in one of the open tanks with the run-of-the-mill prisoners. He’s a pretty guy, so maybe somebody cornholes him, right? And even if they don’t, just let him live with those filthy motherfuckers awhile. You’ll be amazed at what smelling a few assholes will do for a guy’s attitude about whether he wants to talk to somebody. You telling me that down here in Harris County you don’t know how to fuck with people?”
14
THE SUN-HEATED ASPHALT SURFACE COOKED BlNO’S FEET through the soles of his shoes. The Houston PD Auto Pound was underneath the elevated inner-loop freeway. As Bino stood, hands in pockets, and looked Rhonda Benson’s white Eldorado over stem to stern, a forty-foot trailer rig rumbled past overhead, vibrating the pavement. There were gray streaks on the Eldo’s trunk and bumper where filthy water had dried. Rivulets of sweat ran down from Bino’s hairline and dripped from the end of his nose.
“Looks pretty clean, considering where it’s been,” Bino said. “Must not have been under too long.”
The uniformed policeman who stood nearby was around thirty, with blond hair already thinning and fat pouches sticking out over the back of his belt. “I’ve been told,” he said, “to show you whatever you want to see. I don’t have any instructions to make comments.” He was sweating as well. As Bino watched, a trickle ran down the cop’s forehead and soaked into his eyebrow.
The cooperation from the Houston PD was just what Bino expected. Exactly none. He looked for a moment at Rhonda’s personalized license plate, and remembered the time at Crooked River CC when he’d seen her leaving the golf course in the white Caddy, rusty’s R. Rusty’s redhead, tall, charming, just the thing for a guy to have around if he was moving up in certain circles. Which Rusty definitely had been. Bino was glad he didn’t have to see what was left of her. The description on the medical examiner’s report was enough to last for a lifetime.
“Well, do your instructions include,” Bino said to the cop, “showing me what they found inside the car?”
The cop threw Bino a sidelong glance. “Mr. Phillips, you can look at whatever. I know what you’re entitled to see, but I got no personal effects. Anything that was inside that car and wasn’t fastened down, the property room’s got.” Visible beyond him through the glass door into the waiting room, Carla sat primly on a bench reading a paperback. Two cops hovered near the bench, scratching their rumps, chewing the fat, glancing at Carla and likely wondering the best approach to strike up a conversation. Bino hoped they didn’t try the “What would you say to a little fuck?” routine. Carla flipped over a page and pointedly ignored the guys.
Bino returned his attention to the cop. “Funny, but I don’t see any dents in this car. Couple of whiskey-bumps, maybe, but nothing major. Almost like somebody lowered it into that canal on a winch instead of driving it over the edge.”
The cop shrugged. “I just work here.”
Bino expelled air in a sigh of exasperation. “Can you tell me how to get to the lab?” he said. “Or am I supposed to look it up in the phone book?”
The cop showed a deadpan blink. “That’s easy enough. Over in the main city building, fourth floor.”
Bino squatted down on his haunches and peered at the Eldo’s underbody. “Anybody over there in particular I should ask for?”
“Miss Sims. She’s the most helpful on things like what you’re after.”
Bino nearly lost his balance and steadied himself with a hand on the Eldo’s bumper. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll just bet she is.”
Miss Sims walked as if she could have carried a razor blade sideways between the cheeks of her ass without cutting herself. Her HPD uniform was tailored like a man’s and there didn’t seem to be any curves in her body. She compared the three-by-five card in her hand with the metal tag on the evidence drawer, then unlocked the drawer and slid it weightily open. She stood stiffly aside. “Everything’s in storage bags. You can’t be here alone, and you’re not to open the bags and touch what’s inside.”
“They told me you’d be helpful,” Bino said.
Eyes with short brown lashes widened beneath unplucked brows. “I beg your pardon?”
Bino was glad he didn’t have to do a stand-up comedy routine with the HPD as an audience. “How much time have I got?” he said.
Miss Sims checked her watch—plain digital face, black acrylic band—and showed an irritated frown. “It’s not how much time you’ve got. It’s how much time I’ve got to stand here. Ten minutes.” Bino halfway expected her to unholster and raise her service revolver like a starter’s gun.
“Okay,” Bino said. “Thanks.” He picked up the first clear plastic Ziploc bag and held it at eye level. Inside were a round compact with a flower design, a shiny gold tube of lip gloss, and a couple of mascara brushes. He tossed the bag back into the drawer and went on to the next one. This bag contained matchbook covers from Vincent’s Seafood Restaurant and Casa Rosa Mexican Cuisine, both located in Dallas. Ordinarily the Houston PD would have zeroed in on these, and by now should have had investigators in both eating places asking if anyone had seen Rhonda there in the past few days, and who had b
een with her. Since the Mounties thought they already had their man—Rusty—Bino doubted that the cops had followed up on the matchbook covers. Okay, Bino thought, we can get a leg up on the prosecution just by having Half-a-Point Harrison collect his bets the following week at Vincent’s, then pay off the next day over at Casa Rosa, asking a few questions in the process. He dropped the bag containing the matchbooks back inside the drawer.
The next Ziploc held two box seat tickets for the game at Arlington Stadium between the Rangers and White Sox on April 26. The date was nearly three months ago, just a few games into the season. The tickets were torn in half and had been used. Bino tossed the bag and picked up the next. This time Bino squinted at a quarter-size two-pronged digging tool of dull gray metal, a gadget used by golfers for repairing ball marks on greens, dig ’em up for the shoot ’em up was printed on the tool in tiny black letters, Bino chuckled under his breath. Barney Dalton was one helluva poet. He tossed the digging tool. The next bag contained a pair of big, round, I’m-a-starlet sunglasses. Toss the …
Wait a minute.
DIG ’EM UP FOR THE SHOOT ’EM UP.
Conscious of Miss Sims watching from a hip-cocked stance with folded arms, Bino softly dropped the bag containing the sunglasses and reached out for the Ziploc holding the digging tool. He held one corner of the bag between a thumb and forefinger.
Well, whaddya know.
“Find something?” Miss Sims said.
Bino tossed the Ziploc into the drawer and stood back. “Nope, nothing. Just reminded me that I ought to take up golf, get my mind off of some things. I’ll be going now, ma’am. Thanks for your time.”
Bino watched Carla’s thigh muscle flex and then elongate as she crossed one leg over the other, her feet propped up on the edge of the sitting area table, adjusting her position so that the light from the hotel window fell across the book in her lap. Her mouth was drawn in concentration. Bino leaned back against the king-size headboard, picked up the bedside receiver, and punched the long-distance 8 on the Hyatt Regency phone. He waited for the dial tone, then entered the area code and direct line number for the pro shop at Crooked River Country Club, up in Dallas. He wore boxer shorts and was freshly showered and shaved.