I watched Grubbs’ image on the television screen mouthing silent syllables into the microphones.
“Slate, you there?”
“Still here. Watching you speak without sound.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I appreciate the call. And the information. Anything else new?”
“No sir. Any time you know something, unlikely as that seems, feel free to share.”
“Will do, Captain.”
“Right. See you around, Slate.”
I turned off the television, undressed and hung up yesterday’s coat and trousers. I fetched a towel from the bathroom, spread it over my cushion, and sat with a clear mind for ten minutes, then got up to get dressed.
I had just knotted my tie perfectly after only the second try when a man’s booming voice announced: “Room service!”
Said announcement accompanied a heavy knock on the door. When I checked the peephole, I could not see a thing, though the device had worked fine when I checked in.
Like many hotel rooms, the closet in mine, with mirrored sliding doors, occupied a space adjacent to the hall door.
I slid the closet door farthest from the hall door open quietly so I could not be seen standing in the bathroom across from the closet, unlocked the hall door, and stepped just inside the bathroom.
As I expected, for about twenty seconds nothing happened. I waited with the little Ruger in my right hand, my mind still, my diaphragm moving quietly in and out.
The doorknob turned slowly, then the door burst open and a heavy figure in a black sweatshirt and jeans charged in like a fullback trying to make the first down on third and short. As he passed the bathroom door, I accommodated him with a shoulder to the midsection and a leg whip.
His head slammed into the mirrored closet door, shattering the glass and spraying fragments over both of us. Under his right hand was a nickel-plated Bulldog forty-four.
I wanted to think he’d lost his grip on the stubby gun from my ferocious assault, but his sudden loss of strength could have been the result of the six-inch shard of glass protruding from the back of his hand.
I kicked the gun away and put a knee hard into his left kidney. The kick sent the gun skittering across the floor and dislodged the glass. The back of his hand began to spurt blood.
Since he wasn’t holding a gun anymore, I showed him mine by sticking the barrel in his right eye. “Room service? Didn’t anyone tell you I’m a lousy tipper?”
He grunted but did not move. “Don’t get up,” I said.
I stood up and pointed the Ruger at him, pulled my cell phone out of my jacket pocket, and dialed 911.
In five minutes or so, the room filled with cops, if you can call “filling” the sudden presence of two uniforms who must have been in the neighborhood eating doughnuts and drinking coffee.
It seemed longer, but I didn’t really count, since I didn’t often look at my watch, obliged as I was to keep pointing the gun at my guest, and his snappy repartee, consisting of variations of grunts and shakes of the head, caused time to creep by in its petty pace.
“What’s going on here?”
The bigger and older of the two cops, a black man with graying hair, thick arms and shoulders, and a belly that his service belt didn’t hide anymore, pointed his Glock at me and told me to put my gun down.
The other cop, younger, with crewcut blond hair and an angular face, had come in behind and to one side and pointed his gun at Mr. Room Service.
I tossed the little .380 on the bed and told them my name and described what had happened. “And, for what it’s worth, Captain Grubbs bought me a cup of coffee last week.”
“You know Captain Grubbs?” the younger cop said. “Leon Grubbs?”
“That’s the one,” I said.
“Just a minute,” he said. He spoke into his radio, and we all listened to the static; then my cell phone rang.
“Slate? Grubbs. I don’t want to talk to you. Hand the phone to the officer.”
The younger officer identified himself and listened for thirty seconds. “All right, sir,” he said and tossed the phone back to me. “We’re going to take this guy down to the station and book him for B&E and assault.”
The older cop holstered his gun, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and snapped handcuffs on the man on the floor. He looked up at me.
“Make yourself useful, Slate. Give me a hand towel so this guy doesn’t bleed all over this fine hotel.”
The cop took the hand towel and tied it expertly around the bleeding hand. He got Mr. Room Service to his feet and headed out the door.
The younger cop started to follow, but at the door stopped, turned back and said, “Oh, yeah, Grubbs said to tell you to call him in an hour. And he told me one other thing.”
“What’s that, officer?” I asked.
“Please leave Birmingham and never come back.”
He said it with a smirk. I was in no position to take offense.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I checked out of the Tutwiler after retrieving the notes and the memory stick from the safe in the hotel basement and drove the Taurus three blocks to the parking deck behind the Sheraton next to Birmingham’s Civic Center, just north of I-20.
All the way up at the top of the deck, you drive out onto the top floor and suddenly feel like you’re outside again, the only roof the sky.
Today the roof-sky was a leaden gray, producing a cold mist unworthy of windshield wipers. So much for upbeat weather forecasts.
I backed into a parking space, the rear bumper only a few inches from an eight-story drop to the street below. Here, I had a view of the entrance to the top floor of the deck.
I locked the doors and pulled the Glock out of the holster and placed it on the seat. If Matt Damon were playing me in a movie, this would be the place where the obligatory chase scene began, the hero’s and villain’s cars careening around the parking deck smashing into civilians’ rides, bullets flying, fake tire squeals filling the theater.
But this was real life, and the only person I saw for fifteen minutes was an old man with a scruffy fringe of white hair who drove his dirty red Toyota pickup around the deck twice before he found the exit.
By then it seemed no new grunters had followed me from the Tutwiler, and I got out, locked the door, retrieved my bags from the trunk, and rode the parking deck elevator down to the lobby. I paid in cash for one night and showed the Pakistani clerk a driver’s license issued by New Mexico that said my name was Wallace George.
He gave me the card key after the usual spiel about a morning paper and how to find the hotel restaurant. Birmingham isn’t such a hotbed for conventions, believe it or not, and the hotel didn’t exactly seem overbooked.
I declined the offer of a bellman and found the room after an elevator ride and a quarter-mile hike. The side of my hand was a little sore, but that was nothing compared to the damage I would have done to myself if I had used my knuckles on my unexpected guest. I took the ice bucket out, found the ice machine, filled the bucket, then made an ice pack for my hand with the plastic bucket liner. I sat at the desk chair looking out the window at the view of industrial plants, and, in the middle distance, the airport. Now I knew two things I had not known yesterday. Someone wanted to know something badly enough — information they thought I possessed — to send that amateur to my hotel room. They might send a pro next time. And if anyone knew of the relationship between Kramer and Sally… .
I picked up my cell phone and keyed in Sally’s office number. No answer, so I tried her cell. No answer there either. I left a voice mail asking her to call.
I was just about to head back to the law firm when the hotel phone rang. I lifted the receiver and answered.
“Slate,” said a voice. “Leon Grubbs.” Grubbs somehow managed in three syllables to convey both resignation and exasperation.
“Hello, Chief.”
“Deputy Chief Grubbs, Sir, to you. For some reason, Slate, I keep having to intervene to keep you out
of the lockup. Believe it or not, I’m actually becoming a little tired of it. So, next time, if there is a next time, and there won’t be, I may not recognize your name, if you understand me.”
“Understood. But how did you find me here?”
“I’m a trained detective. Slate, I have a couple of people with me who want to talk to you. I can’t imagine why. Although I have better things to do than visit your hotel room, it’s better that we come up there. Comprende?”
“I was just leaving. Can’t you bring them to Woolf White?”
“No, I can’t. We’re here now, and we’re coming up. You stay put. But, there is another thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Like every crime victim, you have the right to know the identity of your — uhh — assailant. Guy’s name is Billy Royal. Walker County peckerwood. No major priors; assault, petty theft, drunk and disorderly.”
“Known to work for anyone in particular?”
“Not really. Funny though. DA’s office says he’s already hired a lawyer. May not stay in our jail very long. Anyway. We’re on the way up.”
Thirty seconds later Grubbs knocked on the door. With him were agents Sanders and Alston.
Grubbs turned to the two FBI agents. “So here he is in all his glory. Agents Sanders and Alston, Mr. Slate. Slate, Agents Sanders and Alston.”
“We’ve met… .” Agent Sanders began, but Grubbs did not seem to hear.
“I hope the three of you have fun, Grubbs said. I have some police work to do.” He was on his way to the door before I could speak, but he stopped with the door open. “And, Slate?”
“Yes, sir, Detective Grubbs?”
He held the door for a moment, then shook his head. “Never mind. Call me.” And he walked out, the door closing with a thump behind him.
I shook hands with the two FBI agents, and they sat on the side of the bed. I sat in the desk chair.
“I see that you wore the WalMart shoes today, agent Alston. Just for me?”
Alston left his gaze steady on me. “No, I upgraded today. Usually wear the WalMart cap toes. But these are the Costco wingtips. My aunt bought me a membership.”
Maybe Alston scored higher on IQ tests than his shoe size after all. “So how did Grubbs — Detective Grubbs — find me here? I did not give the hotel my real name, you know.”
They looked at each other, and Agent Sanders spoke.
“Detective Grubbs didn’t find you here. He just agreed to accompany us after we spoke to him first thing this morning. You’d be surprised what an FBI badge and a recent photograph will do for the memory of a hotel desk clerk.”
“I see.” I’d have to remember that when I spoke to Grubbs. I looked at Agent Sanders with a sudden flash of understanding. “So, did you two trash my boat?”
“Mr. Slate, if we had wanted to search your boat, we would have shown up at the dock with a search warrant.”
“Sure you would. Unless you didn’t.”
“And if we had conducted such an unlawful search, sir, not that we would have, sir, you would never have known we were there, sir.”
“So to make it look like it wasn’t you guys, you searched my boat and trashed it.”
Agent Alston spoke up. “You two are making my head hurt. You know we fibbies aren’t that smart, Slate.”
Agent Sanders nodded. “Look, Slate, we need to work together. The FBI doesn’t usually investigate murders, but we don’t ignore them either. I personally feel a sense of urgency after this last one. We both need the information on that memory stick, but you don’t have the resources to retrieve it. I do.”
“Memory stick?”
Sanders rolled her eyes. “We do investigate, you know.”
“But how did you know about the memory stick?”
“Your friend Moeller seems to enjoy a drink with a friendly FBI agent.”
“I see.” Herr Moeller. “Well played, Ms. Sanders. But I usually work alone.”
“On this one you need our help, and besides, we were on this before you were, and you know the bureau is the first level of law enforcement in any kidnapping case.”
“Sure, but what exactly are you talking about?”
Agent Sanders speared me with those unmatched eyes and said, “We think you know, but in any case, we are here to deliver an invitation.”
“I’m invited to an event? A dinner party? A soirée? I don’t believe I’ve ever had an invitation from an FBI agent before.”
She shook her head. “The United States attorney would like you to come down to the federal building — with us — and talk with her about this matter that it seems, whether we like it or not, we’re both working on.”
“You know you work for an unconstitutional agency.”
“Maybe so,” said Alston, “but we’re hell at solving encryption algorithms.”
“Well. I suppose you are, at that.” I stood, walked to the window and looked out. In the distance I could see Legion Field, where Paul Bryant had leaned, so effortless and casual, so many years ago, against a goal post, a real-life John Wayne in a houndstooth hat.
A little farther south, on a hill overlooking old steel mill neighborhoods, sprawled the Alabama Southern campus, where I’d found the body of an innocent young girl.
I turned back toward the room and Mr. and Ms. FBI. “All right,” I said. “I’ll meet with you and the U.S. attorney.”
“Good,” said Agent Sanders. “See?” she said to Agent Alston. “I told you he’d come around.”
“Did I have a choice?” I asked.
“No,” Alston said.
“When is this meeting proposed?” I said.
“Now,” Sanders answered.
“The government at work on a Saturday?”
“You’d be surprised,” Sanders said.
“I’ll get my coat and hat,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tweedledee and Tweedledum, uhh, that is, Agents Sanders and Alston, escorted me out of the hotel, and we walked shoulder to shoulder up Richard Arrington Boulevard and underneath I-20.
I felt like explaining to other pedestrians that this was not a perp walk, but I doubted that my escorts would appreciate the humor.
Agent Sanders held a cell phone to her ear with one hand and hoisted an umbrella against the cold mist with the other. Alston trudged along beside me, occasionally bumping into my shoulder, no doubt to assert his jurisdiction.
Our ten-minute walk took us past the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Jefferson County Courthouse, the Tutwiler hotel, and the headquarters buildings of Birmingham’s major banks and law firms.
On the damp streets, a few men and women, most in some kind of rain gear, walked quickly, coats and umbrellas held close, eyes squinting against the wind and rain.
As we passed the front doors of One Federal Place, a modern eleven-story building of gray granite and blue-tinted glass, Alston held up one hand and spoke into my ear. “Let’s duck in here for a second,” he said.
“What’s going on?” I said. I nodded at the blue-tinted windows of the building’s lobby restaurant. “You have a sudden craving for chicken salad?”
“Lay off the smart comments for once, Slate. I’m trying to do you a favor.”
Alston turned to his partner. “Go ahead to the offices and get the lawyers ready,” he said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
Sanders nodded and walked on past the fountain in the building’s plaza and toward the federal reserve branch bank on the corner.
I followed Alston into the building. “Come on, Slate,” he said. You’re going to thank me for this.”
He walked past the elevator entrance at the rear of the large lobby.
Behind the elevators, a smaller alcove partially concealed the doors to the lobby restrooms. In front of the men’s room sat a cleaning cart with a yellow “Temporarily Closed” banner.
Alston sidestepped the cart and pushed the frosted glass door completely open.
Inside, an attendant wearing iPod he
adphones swabbed one of the stalls. I hung back with no idea why we were here.
Alston tapped the attendant on the elbow and held out his FBI identification wallet. “We need privacy for a few minutes, friend,” he said. “Take a break.” The attendant nodded, said something that might have been “Yep,” and disappeared out the door.
Alston moved the cart inside and closed the door so the cart blocked the door from anyone trying to enter.
“All right, sport,” he said. “You’re carrying two items that you don’t want to be carrying when we see the marshals at the U.S. attorney’s building. One inside the jacket, one on the ankle.”
“You’re good,” I said.
“I can be even better,” Alston said. “You can just hand me the items. I’m not going to take them off you. I’ll carry them through the metal detector and keep them on me till you leave the building. The marshals know I’m carrying so they won’t say a word to me. But since you’re a lawyer, I’m sure you know it’s a federal offense to show up at the door of a federal facility with a weapon. The marshals might look the other way since you’re with me, but what’s the point in making them decide? And even if they did, they won’t hold them for you, and I will.”
I couldn’t argue with his logic, and I had no doubt that Alston would return the guns to me as he promised. Otherwise, I could complain to his partner, Strangeeyes. Or the U.S. attorney. Or the president. He surely wouldn’t cling to my guns.
I handed over the guns. He stuck the Glock in his jacket pocket, strapped the Ruger on his ankle, nodded, and we walked out.
The office of the United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama resides in a nondescript, or, more precisely, ugly brown brick building on Fourth Avenue North, diagonally across Eighteenth Street from the Hugo L. Black federal courthouse, named for the state’s only United States Supreme Court justice.
From outside, the building housing the offices of the U.S. attorney might be mistaken for a document depository or an unsold renovation. Closer inspection revealed the inevitable presence of the metal detector and X-ray machines just a few feet inside the entrance, staffed by a phalanx of United States marshals, if a couple of aging and none-too-fit gentlemen perching on what looked like cheap bar stools amounted to a phalanx.
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