Dead Bang (25 page)

“Really?”

“Nothing I'd give up our life, our home, and our boys for.”

“But I don't think that way?”

“Men divorce their wives all the time so they can marry younger women,” said Wendy, trying to cover a break in her voice.

“And you think I'd do that?” I gripped her hand gently, but she pulled away.

“Men do it,” she said. “They can.”

“You're the only woman in my life. The only woman who has ever been in my life. I can't imagine my life without you.”

Wendy made tissues appear like magic. She wiped her eyes, then my cheek. When she was done she took my hand on the seat.

• • •

I held up a triangular patch of red satin, basically a Post-it Note with strings, and said, “By God, that girl does own underwear. What do you call this? A slingback?”

“A slingback is a shoe, darlin',” said Wendy. “That's a thong.”

I held it up to my face and said, “Looks like an eye patch with a chin strap.”

“Gimme that,” said Wendy. She snatched the garment and tucked the panties into an elastic pouch inside the suitcase.

I spread out another item with my finger. “This is neat,” I said, “all lace. Your green ones are like that.”

“Boy shorts,” said Wendy.

“Sexier if it had a better name,” I said.

Wendy slammed the lid on Karen's suitcase. I had to count my fingers. “There's no money in there.”

“There should have been.”

Wendy snapped down the clasps on the suitcase. “How do you figure?”

“I don't have the money. You don't have the money. They don't have the money. That leaves Karen.”

“Manny has the money,” said Wendy.

“Manny blew himself up,” I said and started for the door of the motel room with the suitcase. “If I had a suitcase full of money, I could think of slower and more entertaining methods of self-destruction.”

“Exactly,” said Wendy, lingering behind.

“Now what?”

“I'm getting the soap and shampoo,” said Wendy. “We paid for it.”

“C'mon,” I said. “It's three hours to Southfield, and I want to nose out the bowling alley before we start.”

“I think we should get some sleep here,” said Wendy.

“If we take turns driving, we can get a nap in the car.”

“How do you know this Arab woman in Southfield has information?” asked Wendy. “Matty said it was nothing.”

“It's all that we have. The woman drove all the way from Southfield to run interference for Manny when they made their first try for Karen on Twenty-eighth Street.”

Wendy shook her head.

“Let's go over to the bowling alley.”

“We can walk from here,” said Wendy.

We cut across the parking lot. Behind the Waffle House, we found the dusty Lincoln that had waylaid me on my morning trot with Rusty. Two bullet holes punctuated the windshield. Blood on the seat and the steering wheel had dried to a rusty brown. The keys dangled from the ignition.

“Anywhere but Holland, and this car would already be gone,” I said. We walked to the back of the car. No license plate.

Wendy smacked my arm.

“You hit me,” I said.

“You smell that?” asked Wendy. “Sure wasn't me.”

Two large handprints made divots in the dust caked on top of the trunk lid. I sniffed the keyhole, jerked myself upright, and had to shake my head to dissipate the smell.

“What is it?”

I dragged Wendy toward the light of the restaurant with one hand and hit the autodial number for Matty Svenson on my cell phone with the other. “Someone's in the trunk,” I said. “And they are very, very dead.”

“Stop!” said Wendy. I turned to face her, and she patted my chest with her free hand. “We have to get Karen out of there. What if she's still alive?”

“Whoever's in that trunk is dead,” I said. I got Matty's voice mail and left the details.

“You said Khan lied,” said Wendy. “You said Khan wouldn't kill her because he wanted the money.”

“Khan said he dropped Karen's body in the Detroit River,” I said. “The only sure bet is that he can't tell a straight story. Khan had to believe he could get the money. He hung around the motel until he got scooped up.” I nudged Wendy into the restaurant and found a booth equipped with a day-old newspaper.

“We have to do something,” said Wendy. “If Karen's dead, there's no point in going to Detroit. If it's not her,” Wendy's voice broke and her eyes glistened, “we're wasting time.”

“You wanted to spend the night,” I said.

“Somebody's dead out there,” said Wendy.

“Let's give Matty ten or fifteen minutes. If we don't hear from her, we'll call the local cops. They'll be out here like a shot. Twenty minutes is
all I'm asking.” I gave her the front page of the newspaper. I took the sports section. “If that's not Karen, we don't want to contaminate the scene with fingerprints, fibers, or Rusty's hair from our clothes.”

From behind the counter the waitress yelled, “Coffee?”

“One tea, one coffee,” I said.

“I have to use the restroom,” said Wendy. She gathered her purse and left the booth as the waitress brought the drinks.

“Breakfast?” asked the waitress.

“Just the drinks for now.”

“Sure thing, darlin',” she said and gave me a wink. “Sit here as long as you need to. Best not to drive until you and the missus feel up to it.” She left.

Midnight had come and gone, but as I sat hoping Wendy and I didn't look that haggard, Wendy slid into the booth, wiping her blanched face with tissue. “It's not Karen,” she said.

“Let's go,” I said, just loud enough for her to hear. I left the check and the sawbuck at the cash register. Dealing with the police over the body would probably waste an entire day. We headed southeast on M-40, the plan being to catch 131 south to 1-94 and then head east to the Detroit area. “Who was it?”

“Man with a beard,” said Wendy.

“Anybody we know?”

“Hard to tell,” said Wendy. “Someone tied a rope around his neck and twisted it tight with a tire iron. His face was—oh, God!—all blue and bloated with the eyes bulging and the tongue out. He might have been at Karen's house with Manny.”

“You leave any prints?”

“I keep a pair of socks in my purse,” said Wendy.

“Socks?”

“I only carry gloves in the winter.”

I patted Wendy's hand on the seat. I've seen her produce Band-Aids, cheese crackers, and wet washcloths in ziplock bags when needed. If she'd pulled a Boeing airliner out of her purse, my surprise wouldn't have lasted long.

“How do flies get in the trunk?” she asked and started to gag. I pulled off the road.

• • •

Special Agents Matty Svenson and Amad Azzara got a bonus with the body—a diary. The mortal remains in the trunk of the Lincoln belonged
to Ahmad Saada, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Matty and Azzara recovered the diary from his Cherry Street flat.

I didn't learn about it until Agent Azzara read passages from it at an American Society for Industrial Security seminar. “Terrorists: A Criminal Mind—Not a Muslim Mind.”

The diary revealed that a peculiarity of the U.S. tax code had brought Ahmad Saada to western Michigan. Businesses started by immigrants operate income tax-free for the first five years. Just before Ahmad's twenty-third birthday, it became his turn to own his uncle's convenience store. He abandoned his sporadic employment of running guns and explosives into the Gaza Strip and flew to the United States on a tourist visa. For five years, he signed the tax returns, worked from open to close, slept in the storeroom, and prepared his meals on a hot plate. Amad earned three hundred dollars a month, which his uncle sent to Amad's father in Egypt to care for Amad's wife and daughter—once his travel expenses had been repaid.

Just before Ahmad's twenty-eighth birthday, it became his cousin Ali's turn to own the business. Ahmad's uncle delivered Ahmad to a bus stop to seek his fortunes, armed with his clothing and a Koran in a straw suitcase.

The Koran gave Ahmad great comfort. He praised Allah for granting him the wisdom to daily mark a few cash register tape sales as errors and pocket the money. He now had over a hundred one-hundred-dollar bills safely filed in the pages of his Koran.

Ahmad found a storefront mosque to his liking, one without the gaggle of chattering women and children that was the fashion here in the United States, and fell in with a group of men impressed by his youthful flirtation with the Muslim Brotherhood, men who were also eager for him to invest his money. “Sell a kilo of cannabis, and you can earn a thousand dollars. If they catch you, you go to jail. Sell a kilo of music CDs, and you earn three thousand dollars. If they catch you, they take away your CDs, and the next day you order more.”

Ahmad soon found himself distributing counterfeit brand-name watches, handbags, and clothing, along with bootleg CDs and movies, to retailers who sold phony chic at bargain prices. The products were offshore—Indonesian copies of Chinese knockoffs—and all sales were strictly cash.

Ahmad worked hard, stole less than his associates, and rose quickly in the organization. Still, he couldn't believe his luck. He earned a once-in-a-lifetime, all-expenses-paid trip to Mecca for the annual hadj and a doctored American passport. The blessed gift came with a side trip to
Pakistan, where he spoke at madrassas, outlining his firsthand experience of the evils of America and the smug and godless women to be found there. A side trip to Afghanistan for training with the mujahideen rounded out the package. In an arid mountain camp, and with great ceremony, Ahmad was granted an audience with Mahmoud Ibn Saud.

Mahmoud, a.k.a. Manny, lived in Canada but traveled the world under his cover identity as an entertainer. On his travels, he collected the cash generated from the sales of the merchandise Ahmad had been distributing. He delivered it to mujahideen cells in Europe to purchase weapons and invest in the lucrative opium trade. On Ahmad's return to the United States, Manny—Ahmad had been instructed to address Mahmoud only by his cover name—appointed him bagman for western Michigan cash.

This responsibility had a pleasant side. Ahmad traveled to deliver the cash, most recently to the Bahamas. Manny dined them well and provided first-class accommodations. They attended his comedy shows, laughing when the rest of the audience stared on in silence.

No sooner had Ahmad unpacked his luggage from this last trip than his telephone rang. The caller was Manny. Manny was in Grand Rapids and not ten miles from Ahmad's Cherry Street flat.

The cash Manny so carefully gathered had been stolen by an American harlot who drugged him in his hotel room. Manny had tracked her down and needed help recovering the money.

Ahmad liberated a van for Manny's use by taking one for a test drive from a used car lot on Division Avenue. He gathered his closest cadre, pleased to finally strike a blow for his Muslim brothers. Manny pointed out the house in a suburb of Grand Rapids, and they fell upon it to retrieve the money.

In Afghanistan, Ahmad had learned that Americans were all cowards and easy to kill. Ahmad waited at the side door of the harlot's house, knowing that the Americans would quickly flee. When the door opened, he pressed his attack. An American coward man fell to his knees before him, but pushed aside the chattering barrel of his avenging Kalashnikov. A diabolical and undisciplined American whore woman bashed him in the face with a chair, which is the only reason that the coward on his knees was able to sinfully club him with the Kalashnikov and break his jaw.

Sadly, it had been Allah's will that bullets from his avenging Kalashnikov martyred one close friend and wounded another. The American harlot had cast hot water from a window and burned the face of Mahmoud. Undaunted, they pressed their attack and recovered part of the money, finding most in the kitchen and some hidden in the bedroom.

The Americans had spread the money around the house, no doubt as part of some filthy infidel revel. Because of this and the hurried approach of the infidel-crusader police, they were unable to punish the American harlot and her consorts properly.

A doctor from the mosque dressed the wounds of the brave fighters. On the day that Ahmad had his jaw wired, the sly American harlot woman stole the money back by having a truck crash into the van Ahmad had liberated for Manny.

The loss of this money, meant to be used for mujahideen projects in Europe, caused much murmured discussion after prayers at the mosque. Some felt that any faithful Muslim who recovered it should be able to funnel the money into his own group's projects. One such man was named Khan. He spoke shamefully of Manny, calling him “Mahmoud the Prince of Fools” and “Mahmoud the Prince of Cowards.” Allah called upon Manny to martyr himself.

Manny made his martyrdom great and fiery. All of the infidels cowered in their homes at his greatness, but the responsibility for recovering the money and stifling Khan's meddling fell to Ahmad.

W
ENDY TOOK THE WHEEL
at Kalamazoo, but we were both so tired that we caught a rest area and reclined the seats for a nap. By five-thirty the sun had crept up behind the trees and a state policeman had walked up to the car to rap on the window with his nightstick.

I put my seat upright, dropped the window, and said, “Good morning, Officer.”

He took our ID's and retired to his patrol car and radio for ten minutes. When he came back, he returned our cards and said, “You can't sleep overnight in the rest area. We've had some problems. It's just not safe.”

At Willow Run, we tanked up the Camaro, bought a Detroit and suburbs map, and made a nature call. I checked the map for the general location of the address we had from Marg's plate run on the Lincoln Navigator, the home of Mayada Jidah, the woman who had tried to run me off Twenty-eighth Street when Manny had been pursuing Karen.