Scorch City

by Toby Ball

  58.

  Westermann drank coffee from a yellow-stained mug in Kostas’ Diner in Praeger’s Hill, the glass front plastered with anticommunist posters—head shots of Stalin and Mao over the single word VIGILANCE—and blue-and-red TRUFFANT FOR MAYOR signs. Across the booth from him was Nicky Patridis, a small-time crook carrying a rap sheet that included busts for burglary, fencing, pimping, assault, and the rest of the usual, depressing list. Patridis dripping sweat into the gray eggs and dry toast he was eating on Westermann’s dime.

  Westermann wiped his neck with a napkin. “Keeping your nose clean, Nicky?”

  “Don’t give me that shit,” Nicky said, his mouth full of eggs. “What do you want? You buy me eggs, doesn’t mean I’ve got to put up with this shit.”

  Westermann gave him a stare. Nicky was a true sociopath; no point in being reasonable with him because he didn’t respond to reason. Only one calculation mattered to Nicky—how anything affected him. Even when he was cooperating, it was with an eye to his own gain. He was small and hairy and ugly, and Westermann supposed that during his life people had rarely been predisposed to liking him. Westermann hadn’t been predisposed to liking Nicky the first time they had met, and nothing since then had changed his mind.

  “Okay,” Westermann said, pushing his coffee cup out of easy reach because the acid was eating into his stomach. “I’m trying to get a read on Godtown.”

  Nicky shrugged, took a bite of toast.

  “You ever work anything around Godtown?”

  Nicky held up a finger until he finished chewing. “Nobody works Godtown.”

  “Nobody works Godtown, Nicky? All those religious fanatics and nobody’s interested? From what I hear, they spend most nights in church; nobody home. Can it get any easier for skeeves like you?”

  Nicky waved his fork no, speaking with his mouth full. “You’d think so, but it doesn’t work that way.” He swallowed. “Word is that the place is buttoned up. Rudi Odeline and a couple of his boys took a crack at it, like maybe a year back, maybe two. Maddox has got some kind of security or something because it didn’t work out so well for them. Anyway, word got around after that and nobody cases Godtown. It ain’t worth the risk, if you see what I mean.”

  Westermann did see what he meant, thinking about Ole Koss. But he pushed Nicky anyway.

  “I don’t know, Nicky. Rudi Odeline getting scared off? It doesn’t wash.”

  Nicky’s eyes went wide with indignation. “Doesn’t wash? Shit. You don’t believe me, ask fucking Odeline. He’ll tell you.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “Of course. He’s in that kraut fucking garage that he runs.”

  Westermann had been there before. Rudi Odeline was a successful entrepreneur in the City’s underground economy, running an illegal book out of the garage office; probably stolen goods as well, though they’d never got the timing right on a bust.

  Nicky’s eyes strayed over Westermann’s shoulder. Westermann turned and saw the waitress hovering a few feet back; dirty-blond hair, probably attractive if she got a decent night’s sleep. Her bangs hung greasy in her face; her waitress uniform didn’t fit.

  Nicky leaned forward and whispered, “That broad can’t keep her peepers off you.”

  Westermann shook his head, not wanting to get into it with Nicky about this.

  “Jesus,” Nicky said, “I had your looks, I’d be getting cooz all the time. You get a lot of cooz?”

  Westermann tensed, uncomfortable, the conversation getting away from him. He didn’t know how to talk with lowlifes like Nicky. Nicky was the dregs.

  “No?” Nicky was wide-eyed. Westermann noticed with distaste a speck of congealed egg on the corner of Nicky’s mouth.

  “I’m not going to talk to you about this, Nicky.”

  “What, you a queer or something?”

  “Don’t push it.” Westermann shook his head, took his cup of coffee, and poured what remained of it on Nicky’s eggs.

  “All right, all right. I’m making conversation here. Don’t get all bent.”

  Westermann threw some bills on the table, pausing for a last glare at Nicky.

  Nicky said, “Hey, what with you and me pals and all, you think your dad’d take me on pro bono if I get nicked?”

  Westermann considered responding, then thought better of it. What would be the point?

  At the door, Westermann turned around, saw Nicky back at his eggs, picking them out of the puddle of coffee and eating them as if all were right with the world. It was tough thing dealing with Nicky; he was too indifferent to stay intimidated. He snitched to Westermann out of a calculation that he’d get more out of the relationship than he would lose. Westermann kept reminding Nicky of exactly what he had to lose, but was under no illusions that he scared Nicky. Nicky just added the threats to his calculations and either snitched or, occasionally, didn’t.

  59.

  City Hospital was a chaos of the suffering, the ill, and their anxious families. An unsettling din of pain and disease and succor oppressively droned. The heat amplified the misery; the place smelled of sweat and urine.

  Frings pushed through crowds arrayed around the entrance, flashed his press pass at a security guard who was willing to admit anyone with the nerve to bluff him; passed through the double swinging doors into the sudden quiet of an actual ward. The hallway smelled of bleach and sweat and the yellow-tiled walls were damp with the humidity. Frings stopped an exhausted nurse with dark rings under her eyes and got directions to F ward, where Wayne was roomed.

  He trotted down a hall, sliding by nurses and broad-shouldered orderlies; took a left turn into another hall, empty but for a couple of younger guys in suits, looking at a collection of pills one held in his hand. They watched Frings warily as he passed. He took another turn and found the elevator bank.

  Fourth floor. A pair of nurses chatted behind a desk blocking the way from the elevator to F ward. They glanced briefly at Frings and went back to whatever it was that they were doing. He asked for Wayne’s room and the younger of the two jerked a thumb down the hall and said to look for the room with the cops outside. Frings had hoped to beat the cops to Wayne, when he might have had a chance to get Wayne to talk. With other cops around, there was no way. Defeat.

  Frings found an alley in the working-class neighborhood, away from where kids in sleeveless undershirts threw a ragged baseball and women talked, the short sleeves of their dresses rolled up to their shoulders, hair pinned up, necks exposed to whatever wind blew through the streets. He found a reefer in his jacket pocket and lit it with a match scraped across the sole of his shoe. The smoke tasted green and alive, and Frings waited for his frustrations to melt away.

  Minutes passed. His body relaxed. Frings looked down with mild surprise to see that he still held the lit reefer. He stubbed the cherry on the brick wall and dropped what remained into the inside pocket of his jacket. He left the alley, a destination in mind but in no real hurry. A couple of calls to the Gazette had given him Wayne’s home address, and he’d written the man a short note, letting Wayne know that he’d been pegged for the Uhuru Community assaults.

  Frings walked with his hands in his pockets, taking in the scene on the street, the voices coming from open windows. Two hoods sat on a stoop, talking at high volume and petting a thick-necked dog with a chain collar. A half dozen girls—somewhere in their teens—stood in an entranceway, gossiping and laughing. An old man sat in a wheelchair at the top of a stoop, watching the street, expressionless.

  Wayne’s building was on a nice enough block, modest apartment buildings on either side of the street. The door to Wayne’s building was locked and Frings didn’t see anyone inside. Several dozen blackbirds perched on an electrical wire overhead and screamed at the sky.

  Frings lit a cigarette and walked west until he found a florist. He bought a five-dollar bouquet and walked back to Wayne’s building. He had to wait for fifteen minutes before an elderly woman pushing a small cart filled with groceries appr
oached the door.

  Frings pulled a slip of paper with Wayne’s address on it out of his pocket and put on his best smile. “Excuse me, ma’am. Does Sergeant Ed Wayne live in this building?”

  The old woman was frail, her back stooped. She narrowed her eyes. “Sergeant Wayne?”

  “That’s right.” Frings made a show of studying the slip of paper. “This is the address they gave me. Policemen’s Beneficent League, sending flowers, what with Sergeant Wayne in the hospital.”

  “In the hospital?” The woman seemed unimpressed.

  “Assaulted in the line of duty, I hear.”

  She nodded. “That’s too bad, I suppose. Not the best of the tenants, Sergeant Wayne. But that’s a bad business.” She took a set of keys from her purse. Frings held the door for her as she pushed her cart past the threshold.

  “Much obliged,” Frings said.

  The woman retreated down the hall, shaking her head and making a tutting sound.

  The lobby was clean and well lit, if modest. Wayne’s apartment was on the fourth of six floors, and Frings took the stairs. He heard dogs growling behind the door on the third-floor landing, took the remaining stairs two at a time.

  Two doors were set into each side of the short hall on the fourth floor. Frings found Wayne’s door and paused, staring at some kind of marking on the door—a skull under a top hat. He thought of the paintings in the shanties and registered the dissonance of this symbol on Wayne’s door. Or maybe it had been put there by somebody else, raising different, unsettling questions.

  He reached out to touch the graffiti, stopped himself for no real reason, and then, as he had originally come here to do, stooped to slide the note through the crack under the door. He was surprised to hear the sound of a radio inside, and footsteps. Frings stood. He hadn’t even considered that Wayne might be married, that someone else might be home. He pocketed his note and knocked.

  The door was answered by a woman, cute face in a round sort of way, her hair tied back in a scarf, shabby summer dress that fit a little too tight, as if she’d bought it ten pounds ago. She looked tired and Frings thought that maybe she hadn’t slept that night, waiting for her husband to return.

  “Can I help you?”

  He smiled. “My name is Frank Frings. With the Gazette.” He handed her the flowers.

  “I’ve heard of you,” she said, brightening a little and taking the flowers.

  “Your husband’s fine,” Frings assured her. “Has he been in touch with you?”

  “He’s at the hospital. But you probably know that.”

  “That’s right. I’m very sorry that it happened. I’m glad that he’ll be okay.” He held her eyes. “Listen, it would be great for me to get a chance to speak with him. I just need to get his perspective on a couple of things; make sure he gets his story out.”

  “What story?” She wasn’t suspicious, just curious.

  “I’d rather wait to talk to him,” Frings said, flashing an apologetic smile. “I’d be obliged if you’d give him this note.”

  She took the note and looked at it, turning it over, but not opening it. “Okay.”

  “I appreciate that.” He turned to leave.

  She laughed a little self-consciously. “Do all you Gazette people bring flowers?”

  Frings stopped. “What’s that?”

  “Do all you people bring flowers?” She reached into a pocket in her dress. “This guy brought flowers, too.” She handed him a card.

  Art Deyna.

  60.

  Morphy parked the prowl car in a shaded lot on the edge of the Hollows. Some kids played a makeshift game of baseball on the far side of the lot, their voices pitched high and boisterous. Broken glass in the lot caught the sun and looked like a thousand multicolored fireflies.

  Morphy and Grip pulled the grease paper from sandwiches they’d picked up at a deli that catered to cops and pried the caps from two cone-tops of beer. They ate in silence, half-watching the kids. Crows on the periphery of the game shrieked at the players. The police radio in the prowl car squawked in the background. They’d both developed that cop sense to process noise from the radio subconsciously, becoming alert when some word or phrase tipped them that it was relevant. This time they didn’t need the sense. The radio dispatcher used Grip’s name.

  “Shit,” Grip said, looking at the half of his sandwich that remained. He downed the rest of his beer and leaned through the open window for the mike.

  “This is Grip.” He released the talk button and belched, giving Morphy a half grin.

  The dispatcher’s voice came with a hail of static. “That shithole bar you drink at?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Owner asked for you. Wants you to swing by, you get a chance.” “You know what about?”

  “That’s all I got.”

  “Okay.” Grip tossed the mike onto the car seat. To Morphy he said, “We’ve got to swing by Crippen’s.”

  Morphy finished his beer and tossed the can over his shoulder. “What about?”

  Grip shrugged. An altercation started across the field at the baseball game, two kids grappling while the others formed a circle around them, cheering them on.

  Grip felt better now with a couple of beers in him and Wayne located, albeit in the hospital. He needed more information on that, but at least Wayne wasn’t still missing.

  Crippen’s didn’t have official hours and there were times, such as this, when it was open but not really functioning. A couple of older guys, serious boozers, were lighting into tall glasses of whiskey and ice. The bartender washed glasses behind the bar, listening to the usual static and bile coming from the radio. Morphy waited by the door.

  The bartender saw Grip coming and dried his hands on a cloth. “I figured you’d keep me waiting.”

  Grip gave him a sour look. “What’s the rumble? I’m on duty.”

  “Don’t smell like it.” The bartender went to the register and opened the drawer, still talking. “You know how I came in yesterday and found those specs with the shot glass and feathers and all that?”

  “Yeah?”

  The bartender returned with something in his hand. “There was something waiting for me today, too.”

  Grip opened his arms impatiently. “You going to show me, or what?” The bartender laid a police badge on the bar. Grip tapped it around with his finger so that it was facing him.

  “Jesus.”

  Morphy was beside him now. “That your buddy Wayne’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  Morphy asked the bartender, “Did he leave it here last night or something?”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t think so. Check the other side.”

  Morphy picked it up and flipped it over. “Yeah?”

  “You gotta get the light to hit it right.”

  Morphy moved it around a little until he got the proper angle and then it was visible. Someone had etched a crude skull and top hat into the back.

  61.

  Westermann drove farther into Praeger’s Hill, making his way through the slow late-afternoon traffic to Rudi Odeline’s garage on a largely deserted block it shared with a series of run-down storage units. Rudi’s was more of a storage facility than a garage, a white cinder-block box with only the word AUTO painted over the side door to indicate its presumed function. It was an open secret that the garage made its money as a front for a fencing operation, but Rudi was smart or lucky enough that they’d never been able to make it stick.

  The garage was closed up tight. Westermann put his ear against the door, heard muffled voices from within, and pounded hard. Nobody came. He pounded again and put his ear to the door. Silence. A group of kids, a couple of them smoking, watched from the end of the block. The garage wall was pasted with the mayor’s campaign signs. The sun was hot on his neck.

  He pounded the door a last time and followed it with a yell. “Rudi, it’s Detective Westermann. I’m not here on a bust; just some questions. Don’t make me go to the trouble of getting a warrant.” />
  He put his ear back to the door and pictured Rudi thinking it over. Eventually he heard approaching footsteps. He stepped away before the door opened to the massive presence of Rudi Odeline; at least six and a half feet tall and, even at that height, stocky. His blond hair was cut nearly to the scalp, his face chiseled and severe. Westermann noticed that the top third of Rudi’s right ear was missing. Had it been missing the last time they’d met?

  “What do you want, Piet?” His voice always surprised Westermann with its high pitch.

  “A few questions. You want to do it out here or inside?”

  Rudi blew out a big sigh. “Okay, okay. We do it outside, yes?”

  Rudi found a comfortable position leaning back against the cinder-block wall, a pose of unconcern—even boredom. His white T-shirt was saturated with sweat; his green mechanic’s pants clung to his massive legs. Westermann glanced down the block. Rudi’s appearance had scared off the kids, but a pack of five dogs stood alert at the end of the street. Rudi was watching them, too.

  “Rudi,” Westermann started, getting back the big man’s attention, “I’m going to ask you about something from the past. I give you my word that I’m not interested in bringing you in on this crime. Do you understand? I’m not interested in your part in it.”

  Rudi nodded, not happy, but weighing the possibility of getting a chit in his favor with Westermann. His face was sunburned. Westermann could make out white scar tissue over his eyes.

  “A few months ago you cased a B and E up in Godtown.”

  Rudi looked as if he was about to protest, decided against it, and nodded.

  “So I’m guessing that you, what, you heard about Godtown, it sounded interesting, and you went up there to watch the place, get a sense of how things go there. Maybe you picked a roof on one of those abandoned buildings and watched. And you saw that these people, they cut out for church every night for hours and the whole block was just empty. How’s that so far?”