Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 18 - Nicotine Kiss

by Loren D. Estleman

  There wasn’t much more to the house than there had been to the makeshift church: in the bedroom a rumpled bed and dresser that didn’t match, shirts and sweaters and slacks and socks and underwear folded neatly in the drawers, some change scattered on top; sink and toilet and shower stall in the little bathroom, nothing more powerful in the cabinet than blood-pressure medication prescribed by a doctor in Port Huron; a pair of cheap new platform rockers and a fairly old sofa in the living room; a two-burner stove in a papered kitchen and sheet-metal table where Pastor Starzek took his meals. No dining room. The place was heated by an olive-colored oil stove in the living room, thermostatically adjusted somewhere between The Bridge on the River Kwai and the temperature at which blood comes to a boil. I wanted to open more windows.

  I found a handful of wiry gray hairs in a brush, a pile of printed circulars advertising the Church of the Freshwater Sea, with a picture of a burly, bland-faced party in his fifties wearing a hairpiece that looked like a rasher of bacon. He bore a slight resemblance to what Jeff Starzek might look like in twenty years. The wide mouth seemed a fair vessel for the blaring voice over the telephone. It would ring off the metal walls of the church out back like a cherry bomb.

  I folded one of the circulars and put it in my pocket for a souvenir. I didn’t think he’d miss it.

  There was a cheaply bound copy of the New Testament in every room, bathroom too; and on the wall above the sofa a framed print of a Renaissance-style painting showing a nearly naked man bound to a pillar and pierced from forehead to calf with a quiverful of arrows. “St. Sebastian, by Andrea Mantegna” was engraved in italics on a narrow strip of brass screwed to the bottom of the frame. Just looking at the picture made my leg throb.

  The telephone was an old black rotary perched on a spindly table with a paper doily on top; no Caller ID, and no Star 69 to retrieve the last number dialed, either. A private, pious man, Dr. Starzek, as old-fashioned as a double broiler. D.D. followed his name on the circulars. Doctor of Divinity. I hadn’t come across a diploma.

  A chest freezer in a little pantry off the kitchen was packed with chickens frozen as hard as bowling balls, broccoli and Brussels sprouts in Ziploc bags, bundles wrapped in white paper marked VENISON in black felt-tip, and dated. Nothing store-bought. The reverend appeared to have a lively barter system going with his congregation. No room there for a body to have been stored recently. I hadn’t really expected one, but I have a bad track record with empty houses.

  What was missing, apart from a radio or television—not uncommon among those who spend their evenings with Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John—was the personal touch: family photos, letters from friends and relatives, the odd piece of memorabilia that didn’t go with anything else in the house, suggesting a gift kept for sentimental reasons. No sign of a spouse or close association from either sex. A monastic life—or one lived by someone who took pains to give that impression.

  I let myself back out the way I’d come in, seating the window sash securely against the sill. Only a hairline crack showed where the paint had parted, and a few shavings from the screwdriver. I blew them away and went back to my car, leaning on the cane and chewing Vicodin. I had more investigating to do in the neighborhood.

  FIVE

  Half a mile up the highway from where Old Carriage Lane branched off, a low, flat-roofed construction of glass and reinforced concrete with pumps out front advertised convenience items for sale inside. VIC’S SUPER SENTER, announced a professionally painted sign on the roof.

  Inside were the usual displays of chips, cookies, and sandwich spreads in little cans among the motor oil and antifreeze. A glass-doored cooler filled with pop and bottled water pumped and wheezed, and there was a smell of smoked fish and ammonia from a horizontal refrigerated glass case where fresh catch was sold in season. The white head of the woman behind the computerized cash register was just high enough to read the LED. She blinked at me from behind black-rimmed trifocals as big as cafeteria trays.

  “Vic in?” I asked.

  “Right in front of you, mister. I’m Vicki outside the store. Painter charged by the letter.”

  She had a cigarette bass that would have silenced a bullfrog.

  “I’m looking at some property down Old Carriage Lane,” I said. “Couldn’t help noticing there’s a church in the neighborhood. What can you tell me about it?”

  “Who’s selling?”

  There didn’t seem to be any suspicion in the question, just curiosity. She would know most of the locals. That’s what I was counting on.

  “I haven’t spoken to any of the owners. I’m trying to get out of Detroit. The road caught my eye and I took a drive down it. I knocked at the house in front of the church, but there wasn’t anyone home.”

  “His truck there?”

  I nodded. “I don’t think he’s had it out in a while.”

  “Huh.”

  “My wife’s undecided about moving,” I tried. “She’s a born-again Christian. Church nearby could be just the thing to win her over.”

  “Mister, I don’t believe there’s been a soul under sixty inside Doc Paul’s place in years. Most of ’em’ll never see seventy again, and every spring there’s less than there was the year before. For all I know, he uses it to store rock salt in the winter. He’s about the only one on that road don’t fly south with the robins. He almost never leaves the place except to fill his freezer, and when he does he always takes the truck. Most likely he was asleep when you knocked on his door.”

  “He must sleep sound. I knocked loud.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know how he sleeps. I gave up my interest in men when my Al died. A bit before, if you catch my meaning.” She stuck her tongue out between her teeth like a naughty little girl. The teeth were small and even and white as Junior Mints.

  “He sounds lonely. Not much family, I suppose.”

  “I never heard him mention any, but don’t take anything from that. I only see him when he gets a taste for smoked coho, when they’re running, and even then he’s not what you’d call a gossip. I guess that comes with being a preaching man. He’s a hermit is what he is.”

  “No visitors.”

  “Huh.”

  I waited. Vickie wasn’t the type to tell any secrets—if you didn’t keep your mouth shut long enough for her to talk.

  “Normally, I’d say yes,” she said. “Only you’re the third one to stop here asking about him since Christmas.”

  I didn’t fall off my cane. I’d been expecting something on that order since I’d talked to the preacher.

  “What makes him so popular all of a sudden?”

  She leaned her chin across the counter and dropped her voice to foghorn level. “Federal trouble. Fifth Column stuff. Spying for the A-rabs.”

  “Terrorists?” I almost whispered the word. Talking to her it was hard not to sound like old-time radio.

  She showed her teeth again and nudged her glasses farther up her nose. “Hang on.” She rattled some keys with scarlet nails at the end of mummy’s fingers. The drawer of the register licked out and she rummaged among the checks and food stamps under the tray inside. She showed me a card I’d seen before, decorated with an eagle.

  “ ‘Herbert Clemson,’ ” I read aloud. “Was he genuine, do you think?”

  “I seen a badge, all gold and blue enamel. A polite young man. He asked me the same questions you did. Only he didn’t pretend he was checking out property to buy.”

  I grinned. It had been pretty thin to begin with, but I was off my game. I showed her my license with the discontinued Wayne County deputy’s badge pinned to the bottom of the folder. It didn’t have any gold or enamel. “I know Agent Clemson,” I said. “He came to my office this morning to ask for my cooperation. There’s always some duplication in these cases; can’t be helped.” I put away the folder and gave her a card.

  She held it next to Clemson’s, comparing them. There was no comparison. My jobber did a two-year bit in Jackson for faking birth certificates
and driver’s licenses; Clemson’s engraved invitations to the White House. “It don’t say here you’re with the government.”

  “Homeland Security’s understaffed. It fills the spaces from the private sector.” I showed her the card Clemson had given me. It was identical to hers.

  It worked. It does, often, although I don’t know why. Anyone can get hold of a card or have one printed up. “You get that bum leg in the line of duty?”

  “Terrorists shoot first and don’t ask questions. What about the other man?”

  “Who said it was a man?” She put my card and the agent’s under the tray and bumped shut the drawer.

  That put me back a little. Then she stuck her tongue out again.

  “An old woman’s got to take her fun where it comes,” she said. “It was a man. Bald as a coot and red as a radish. I thought he was an Indian till he opened his mouth. The Chippewas that fish these parts grunt like Tonto. It don’t matter if they went to Harvard; they all go native once they come back here.”

  “Was he wearing a uniform?”

  “Uniform?” That troubled her. She squinted, as if he were still standing in front of the counter. When she did that, her face wadded up like a candy wrapper. She was nearly as old as the lake. “Red-and-black Mackinaw, I remember that. I guess you might call it a uniform in this part of the country.”

  I hadn’t really expected him to dress like Detroit Edison on an errand like that. I was pretty sure it was the man I knew as Oral Canon.

  “When was he here?”

  “After the government man. New Year’s Eve day, I want to say. Yes, I’m sure of it. Young Tommy Flint just finished clearing seventeen inches of partly cloudy from the lot, just in time for the holiday rush. ‘Partly cloudy,’ that’s what the TV weatherman predicted. The bald man was the first customer I had since it finished piling up the night before. Not that he bought anything or gave me a dime for the information.”

  That was the big blow Canon had mentioned, that had had him working overtime in Oakland County. If he really was a lineman, it wouldn’t be hard for him to wander a few more miles north without having to account for his movements.

  “What kind of questions did he ask?”

  “Just directions to Doc Paul’s. Old Carriage is hard to find even with a map, and I don’t think he had one. Then too, snow covers signs.”

  I thanked her by buying ten dollars’ worth of gas and a carton of cigarettes. She rang up one of Canon’s C-notes and gave me change. “Economy must be looking up.”

  “I’d appreciate your not telling Dr. Starzek I was asking about him. We don’t really figure him for a spy, but he might start talk among the flock. It’s just routine. These little church congregations are getting a closer look.”

  “Don’t you worry about it, young man. Vicki’s a vault.”

  A little squall blew up before I got clear of the lake country, hurling snow across 1-94 and slowing traffic to a shadowy crawl. By the time I got out of it I’d missed lunch and high tea. I stopped at a drive-through in Warren and bought a burger and a cup of coffee. The kid in the window looked at me closely as he made change. My leg was hurting and I guessed it showed on my face.

  A state trooper’s car followed me down the off-ramp in Detroit. I didn’t think anything of it until his flashers came on. I pulled over.

  He was a young left tackle in a fur hat, zipped to the neck in a leather coat trimmed with pile. He unbuttoned the strap on his sidearm and asked to see my license, registration, and proof of insurance. When he was through reading he asked me to step out of the car. He stepped back when he saw me struggling with the cane, but he didn’t kick it out from under me. He frisked me with his eyes. My coat hung open. I wasn’t armed.

  “Mind telling me what your business was in Warren?” His tone had nothing in it. His hand rested on his holster.

  I thought. “I stopped for lunch. Did I forget to pay?”

  “That’s a city complaint.” He unzipped his jacket with his off hand and took out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. “You paid with this. Counterfeiting’s federal, but they’re tied up just now. Care to tell me where you got it?”

  SIX

  For a window jockey, the kid in Warren had had a good eye; or rather sense of touch. The old-style twenty, which is still in circulation, looked genuine as to color and engraving, and was convincingly stained and crumpled by what appeared to be passage through many hands. It was printed on very good paper. But it had been printed on paper.

  I popped it a couple of times, stroked it between thumb and forefinger, held it up to the light, and gave it back to the trooper. I’d milked things a little, but then I’m a born ham.

  “I’m poor,” I said. “I don’t handle the stuff often enough to know the difference.”

  “Not good. Not even funny. What else you got?”

  We were sitting in the front seat of his cruiser with a console separating us, bumped out all over with equipment and coiled black cords and wee colored lights. He had a two-way radio, an onboard computer with a printer, GPS, and something that looked too much like a professional doughnut maker for comfort; if I didn’t stop looking at it I was going to say something unfortunate and lose whatever chance I had at freedom. Every now and then a call came gurgling over the radio that had nothing to do with us, and from the lack of tone in the dispatcher’s voice, not much more to do with her. They recruit them from Thorazine-testing laboratories.

  “Okay.” I got a cigarette out, to keep my fingers busy; nothing more than an electrical fire had ever been lit in that car. “So long as it’s understood knowing a bit about counterfeit money doesn’t make me a counterfeiter.”

  “No free passes,” he said, flat as a paddle. “I tore the last one off the pad. Go.”

  “Paper money isn’t paper, really. Mostly it’s cloth. That’s why it doesn’t fall apart when it goes through the wash in your jeans pocket. That bill’s mostly paper with some threads running through it. Bed-and-breakfast stationery is good as a rule, but it isn’t Treasury stock. The kid who called in my license plate must’ve kept his fingers off the griddle.”

  “The new bills are harder to fake, and the old ones are starting to thin out. Some business owners train their people to give the discontinued series more attention. These others are fine.” He put back the bills he’d taken from my wallet and held it out.

  I took it and returned it to my hip pocket without counting. He looked too spit-shined to palm anything less than a hundred, and maybe not even that. Anyway he hadn’t the palms for it.

  “This kid ought to get a raise,” I said. “As it is, his boss will probably take the twenty out of his time.”

  “It’s always the little guy gets it in the neck. But not on my beat. Go home.”

  “You’re kicking me loose?”

  “If I were passing bad bills, I’d drive a better car. Someone slipped it to you, I’m pretty sure. Whether you didn’t notice or decided to slip it to someone else is between you and Andy Jackson. I’m not your spiritual counselor.”

  “The car’s a classic,” I said. “Punks kept choosing me at stoplights so I went over it with a baseball bat.”

  “You wouldn’t remember who gave you the bill.” I didn’t see any faith in his expression. They leave it in the locker with their civvies at the start of the shift.

  I made my face thoughtful. I’d driven straight to Port Huron from Detroit with nothing in my wallet but a few of the C-notes Oral Canon had paid me to find Jeff Starzek. The only place I’d broken one was at Vic’s Super Senter, around the corner from Paul Starzek’s house and church. The old lady making change behind the counter had even made a crack about the economy looking up.

  I said, “I could give you a list of possibles, but you’d have to shake loose every police station in this part of the state. I’ve been on the road all day.”

  “That’s the trouble with money. Everybody squawks about it, but nobody looks at it when he’s getting it or spending it. Chances are whoever s
lipped it to you had it slipped to him and he passed it on all unawares.”

  “All unawares,” I said. “Landagoshen.”

  The cop’s face got as hard as quartz. It hadn’t been puff pastry to begin with. “Go home. Pay more attention to your cash from now on. It’s only what drives the whole system.”

  I limped back to my car. The cruiser kicked gravel and pieces of broken pavement U-turning back the way it had come. I threw away the cigarette I’d been playing with, tapped out a fresh one, and fired it up from the dash lighter. I felt a little bad about ragging the cop, but it had taken my mind off my leg. I figured he’d pass it on to the driver of the next sports car he saw topping seventy, just like a counterfeit bill.

  It was cold in the car, but I didn’t start it. I smoked and thought and rode the Shockwaves from the traffic slapping past, trying to beat the rush.

  Funny money’s like food poisoning. Everyone’s had it at one time or another without really knowing it. Since laser printing had eliminated the need for bulky photo-engraving plates and big cumbersome printing presses, fake twenties had become as common as northern black squirrels; worth looking at when you noticed them, but not worth getting excited over. Washington disagreed, and in response had redesigned its bills for the first time since the Depression to make counterfeiting more of a challenge. That would hold until the last of the old bills went to the furnace and the paperhangers returned to the drawing board. The only sure way to stop a crime is to make it legal.

  That was someone else’s problem. Just because a scrap of false currency had found its way into my hands while I was looking for Jeff Starzek didn’t mean it had anything to do with the job. It was just curious that he’d spent most of his adult life ducking the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and that ATF is a division of the Department of the Treasury. Same old enemy he knew by type if not always by name. Agent Clemson of Homeland Security had said Starzek had branched out in a whole new direction, and Starzek had hinted he’d thrown over cigarettes for another kind of cargo, just before he’d driven off the edge of the map.