Dead Bang (29 page)

“The dude with one eyebrow,” I said.

“That Rashid?”

“Don't know—sure hope not. I take it that Rashid Erekat isn't the name on Manny's Canadian passport.”

“Rashid Erekat is a Canadian citizen with no passport, but he just deposited two hundred eighty-seven thousand American dollars in a Canadian bank in Windsor, Ontario.”

“You have some documents?”

“Yes.”

“Fax me a copy?”

“Not a chance,” said Matty. “Time for you to back off this case.”

“So, why did you call?”

“We're pulling the surveillance detail off your house,” said Matty. “You need to come home.”

“It's only been a couple of days.”

“They pulled a Jane Doe out of the Detroit River at Wyandotte,” said Matty.

“Could be anybody,” I said.

“Female, Caucasian, no head, no hands, but bound and weighted and pretty much matching what Khan told us.”

I had to think about that.

“Art, you still there?”

“Yeah. ‘Pretty much' is a guess.”

“Hardin, you're a loose cannon. They want you out of there. Now! That's not a guess, it's a quote.”

“Karen was worth too much money to dump in the river. Khan had a body in the trunk of his Lincoln. God knows who else he killed or how he disposed of the bodies. I need you to fax me the documents. If Karen's dead, it doesn't matter, but if she isn't, it could make all the difference.”

I listened to dead air until Matty finally said, “Can't do it, Art. Sorry. You need to break it off and get back to your house.”

“I'm not pulling off a hot surveillance,” I said.

“We can't stay on your house,” said Matty.

“I'll put my own people on it,” I said. I could see the man with one eyebrow folding the newspaper.

“We don't want any more civilians in this,” said Matty.

“Then leave the detail on my house.”

“Art,” said Matty, “I don't make those decisions.”

The Escalade showed me brake lights as the driver pulled it into gear. “Ask the guy who does.”

“I'll call you back,” Matty said and hung up.

“What's that about?” asked Wendy. She patted my shoulder. “He's moving.”

“FBI has Canadian bank documents,” I said. “They won't share.” I eased out onto southbound Greenfield behind the Escalade.

“We've got the GPS,” said Wendy. “We can get the address that way.”

“And if he figures out the watch, we're cooked.”

“Don't get too close,” said Wendy.

Mr. Unibrow took the Ditch downtown.

“They're pulling the FBI detail off the house,” I said. “If Matty can't get them to stay, we have to go back.”

At Old Mariners' Church, Mr. Unibrow turned right and took the tunnel to Canada. Wendy and I, both armed, had to watch him fade from sight.

M
Y CELL PHONE PESTERED
my pocket. I cussed the traffic and the traffic light, then flipped open my telephone. “Matty?”

“Special Agent Azzara. Agent Svenson is having a heated discussion just now. I would like to help you ‘look behind the door.' Give me a number where I can fax you a document.”

“I'm at a stoplight,” I said. “All I have is a computer. Can you e-mail it?”

“I am at my desk. All I have is a fax. In five minutes, my opportunity to share this information will have passed.”

The light changed. I said, “Hang on.” The next drive on the right was the Crest Park Motel—that's where we went. Under the portico, I launched myself out of the car only to bang chests with a blue-clad uniformed guard, armed with a whistle, nightstick, and satin-nickel Desert Eagle. Without taking a back step, the guard said, “Man, you can't park here.”

“I'm checking in,” I said.

“Y'all haffa park on the street,” he said, leaning his chest into mine. “You can't be on this lot 'less you a guest.”

“That's Jefferson Avenue,” I said. “There isn't any street parking.”

“You juss haffa work that out,” he said as he screwed his face into a sneer.

I brushed by him. “So call the police.”

“I'm havin' this piece o' shit towed, mutha fucka.”

I grabbed the handle of the entrance door and found it locked. I knocked. The desk clerk looked up from a newspaper spread open on the counter, adjusted her wig—a mass of tight auburn braids—and turned the page of her newspaper. I knocked again. She gave me an insolent face and spoke into a microphone mounted to an aluminum gooseneck on the counter. “You haffa come round to the winna.” She pointed to a portion of the glass area around the corner from the door.

I turned and found that the guard had installed himself on the walk in front of me with his arms folded to his chest. “Man, you best move that damn car.”

I shouldered by him. “Don't you have to call the police, or a tow truck, or something?” On the way to the window, I slapped my cell phone to my face and said, “Agent Azzara?”

“Tick, tock, Mr. Hardin,” he said.

At the walk-up window, the desk clerk spoke to me through a round hole in inch-thick Plexiglas. “Waash you want?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “Do you have a fax machine?”

“Foh the guests,” she said, rocking her head from side to side for each word.

“Great, I want a room.”

“Booked up.”

I could see the head and shoulders of an Asian man with a round face and gray at his temples, seated at a desk through a door behind the counter. “May I speak to the manager, please?”

“He on his lunch break.”

I yelled through the hole in the Plexiglas. “Hey!”

The man looked up from his desk, and I beckoned with my hand.

The desk clerk said, “Fool! Why doan you just take your ho and park in an alley.” She slid a metal door down to close the hole.

In the parking lot, the guard rapped on Wendy's window with his nightstick. I heard myself say, “Oh, shit.” I would have gone back to the car but the man from the office had started for the window. The clerk backed up a step. The Asian man, short but wide and wearing a white shirt and tie, slid open the metal door.

“Yes,” he said. “There is a problem?”

“I want to rent a room.”

“I ain't changing no damn nasty sheets jus 'cause they gone in half an hour,” said the desk clerk. “You gots to get a maid on nights.”

I heard the car door open and Wendy launch, but all I could make out
was the “dumb son of a bitch” part. Wendy stood with her finger pointed directly between the guard's eyes.

The manager consulted a document on the counter with his finger. “Have a suite,” he said.

“I'll take it.”

The desk clerk folded her arms and leaned to her left so she could tap her right foot on the floor. “Fool didn't ax for no damn suite. Said he wanted a room. You know what that's about this time o' day.”

“Two hundred-fifty dollars?” asked the manager, showing me question mark eyebrows.

“Fine. I need the fax number here.”

The manager dropped a card into a metal pass-through drawer and pushed it out to me. The card had the name of the motel and phone numbers, including the fax. I dropped my credit card into the drawer and read Agent Azzara the number. He read it back.

“Right,” I said. He hung up. I put the cell phone away.

“I don't
gots
to do
anything!”
Wendy shouted from behind me. I looked back over and saw that she'd backed the guard up several steps, her finger still in his face.

The manager walked off with my credit card. The desk clerk said, “You muss be crazy, fool.” She walked away, her arms still folded. As she left she said, “You best be.”

I leaned around the corner and yelled, “We have a room.” The guard snapped his head to look at me. “We're checked in.” He started back toward me. Wendy climbed back into the car.

The metal drawer slid through to my side, and I found my credit card, the fax Agent Azzara had sent, and a paper folder with plastic room keys.

“You have a copier?” I asked. The manager nodded without looking up from his notations. “Can I get about ten copies of this fax?”

“Dollar a copy,” he said. “Your room key will open the door. Take the elevator to the second floor. Turn left.”

The guard rounded the corner. “You gots to move that car, man.”

“I'm sure you don't mind if I carry my luggage in first?”

“Man, they ain't no place to park.”

“Are we going to have a problem?” I asked.

“Believe me, ole man,” he said and pushed his face up to mine until we were nose to nose. “You ain't gonna be no problem.”

“How much does a parking place cost?”

The guard turned his back to the window and looked around the lot. “Mos' times ten dollar. For you, twenty. 'Cause your bitch ho diss me.”

“You know,” I said, and peeled him off a fifty. “I was born in this
town.” He turned back and took the fifty with happy eyes glowing like jewels in a smug face. “Fuck with me again, and I'll kick your ass up so high you'll have to tip your hat to take a dump.”

It's in the eyes. I always watch the eyes. Some people will tell you to watch the hands. If you wait for the hands to move, you'll be stepping into the fight one punch late. His eyelids tensed as he unloaded a right-handed bitch slap, which I caught with my left forearm. With a knuckle of my right hand, I knocked up the bill of his hat and gave him a toothy smile.

His eyes went wide and his right shoulder rose as he dropped his hand for the Desert Eagle on his hip. The Desert Eagle is a long weapon, and unless it's worn very low, the shooter has to bend his arm double at the elbow to get it out. I let the muzzle clear his holster and grabbed the slide, palm out, just above the muzzle with my left hand. With a snap twist of my wrist and forearm, I pulled the weapon up and tucked the muzzle into the soft part of his chin behind the line of his jaw, my right index finger jammed in the trigger guard over his. “Oops,” I said.

He curled his upper lip to show me a line of white teeth and tried to jerk away, but his jaw trapped the muzzle in place.

“Carry one in the spout, do ya?” I said, trying to sound breezy.

He twisted his finger to get it out of the trigger guard, causing the hammer to flex back.

“Oh, I wouldn't do that,” I said.

“You gonna hafta kill me, mutha fucka,” he said.

He eased up on his finger. Sweat trickled from his hatband onto his cheek.

“I don't think you want to die,” I said. “Mostly, you don't want to die like a dufus, capped by some ‘ole man' with your own shiny new Magnum. Folks in the funeral home would have to hold their faces so they didn't laugh their asses off.”

He said, “Pul-eeze don't kill me!”

“We have a problem,” I said. “I'm going to be here for several days, and I'm not sure we can be friends.”

“You and me, man. All the way.”

“Great,” I said. “But I don't like that mean face you're making. I'm thinking you might be just a fair-weather friend.”

He showed me a smile so big I could see his molars.

“What's your name?”

“Jamal.”

“Okay, Jamal, sir! Now that we're best buds, I want you to let go of
this weapon and turn around. When you get turned around, you fold your arms, and I put this eagle back in the nest.”

Jamal relaxed his hand and let it fall off the Desert Eagle.

“Easy on the turn,” I said.

Jamal turned and folded his arms. I took a step back. “You need to know that I have a .45 on my hip. If you drop your hand on the Desert Eagle, you're going to wish it was your dick because it's the last thing you'll ever pull.”

I slid his pistol into his holster. “You walk in front of me. We're going over to the car. And when we get there, that's when you apologize to my wife.”

“That your wife, man? I'm sorry. Mostly guys don't bring wives here.”

“I'm sure that's right. Nice of you to be conciliatory. Except it means you're thinking. Thinking maybe I'm going to take my eyes off you, or I'm going to get my suitcase in my hand. Could be I'm going to unlock my trunk with my right hand. You thinking something like that? Jamal? Sir?”

“No, man. I ain't thinking like that. I'm thinking that at fifty bucks a day, I ain't killin' you till you check out.”

“My man!” I said. “Let's go.”

Jamal strode around the corner. I stayed a couple of steps behind. Wendy bolted out of the car ready to rock and roll, her forehead wrinkled and her index digit at the ready.

Jamal touched the bill of his cap. With a nod of his head he said, “Ma'am, I
am
sorry. I shouldn't have been hassling you, seeing as you were checking in and all.”

Wendy glanced past Jamal at me, her nose and eyebrows wrinkled into a question mark. I gave her a shrug.

She said, “Ah, sure. Well, then, I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

Jamal said, “Thank you, ma'am. Probably best if we leave the car parked right here. It'll be just fine.”

“Hon,” I said, “how about popping the trunk?”

Wendy ducked into the car, and the trunk lid sprung upright. Jamal said, “Let me get your bags.”

Jamal lifted the suitcases out of the trunk. Wendy took the folder, found the key card, and opened the lobby door. I grabbed the two-suiter with my left hand, set it on the ground, and closed the trunk.

At the desk, the clerk looked past me and said, “What on earth you doin', Jamal?”

“Just helping these fine folks here, Shawna,” he said.

Shawna flopped my copies on the desk. “Ten dollars.”

“Put it on the room,” I said.

“We don't put nothin' on the room,” she said, making her eyes slits.