Dead Bang (38 page)

Wendy lay peacefully asleep. I gathered an armload of clothes and tiptoed out of the room. After a shower, I pulled on khaki slacks, a pullover white knit shirt, and a new blue sports coat with brass buttons. I thought the jacket made me look like a drum major, but Wendy had picked it out, so I didn't complain.

Karen limped in from the deck while I poured a cup of coffee. She wore a cardigan sweater over a housecoat. From below her nose, her face
looked like the bastard child of Mr. Scrape and Ms. Bruise. With tears in her eyes, she clamped a hug on me and hung on as though she would drown if she let go. Matty and Agent Azzara followed Karen in from the deck.

“I'm so sorry,” she sobbed. “I was so stupid.”

“Well,” I said, “it was a lot of money.”

“No! Not for mon-ney,” she said, dragging the “-ney” part out to a whine. “I wanted to hurt him back. Please don't hate me.”

“I don't hate you, Karen,” I said. “I'm disappointed. You lied to us and put my son in danger.”

Karen hopped on her toes, gripping and bumping her head on my shoulder as she whimpered, “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!”

I put my arms around her and rubbed her back. “Okay, okay, okay,” I said.

I looked at Matty. Matty closed her eyes and exhaled a sigh as she nodded.

“You have to help the authorities,” I said. “All delusions and illusions aside, you're the one you hurt the most. Wendy and I aren't such fair-weather friends that we'd abandon you at a time like this.”

I felt Wendy's hand on my back. She kissed me on the cheek, peeled Karen loose, and walked her to the bathroom. When the door closed, I asked Matty, “She know anything helpful?”

“She heard a lot of stuff,” said Agent Azzara. “She doesn't know what it meant.”

“Hell,” said Matty, “we can only guess at most of it.”

“So who has my phone tapped?”

“We found a tap at the phone company,” said Agent Azzara, “but no warrant. We left it in place to find out who picked up the cassettes.”

“An employee?” I asked.

“Probably not the soda vendor,” said Agent Azzara.

“How long do I have to put up with this?”

“We want to follow the lead as far as it goes,” said Matty.

“I still have a business to run,” I said.

“Keep your cell phone turned on,” said Matty. “We have some roving surveillance in the area.”

“Mugs are in the cupboard,” I said and sipped my coffee.

I took my Colt off the top of the refrigerator and oiled the rails while Matty and Karen went back out to the deck. Agent Azzara poured himself a java.

“You in trouble?” I asked.

Agent Azzara laughed. “Yes. The records I gave you were considered
classified. On the other hand, the arrests we made and the evidence we recovered impressed Washington. Disciplining me could be embarrassing. I'm considering a job as an analyst.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Why?” asked Azzara. “It pays better, and I have a family.”

When I'd topped off my magazines, I headed out the door.

Daniel stood hosing dust off his car and making a mess of the drive. “You make any calls yet?” I asked.

“Harrison's said they'd call back when they found the parts,” said Daniel. “They figured late today or maybe tomorrow.”

“How much?”

“Said it depends. It'll be more if they have to paint the column to match.”

“Tell 'em to paint it anyway,” I said. “There's no reason to put scraped up parts on.”

“Will the insurance company cover it?”

“We can't make a claim,” I said. “There's no police report. The only reason they didn't impound the car as evidence is that they didn't arrest the guy who stole it and did the paint job.”

“He just got away with it?”

“I wouldn't say that. He worked on it all night, and the supplies cost more than the bail would have been.”

“But we have to fix the steering column.”

“Cheaper than all the trips to Detroit to testify, and you have your car back.”

“Hey, Pop,” said Ben, “watch this.” He tossed a ball in the air and nailed it with a fat, red, plastic bat. Rusty rocketed after it and had it on the second bound. I'd never seen a Wiffle ball sail that far or heard one make that musical “ping” when it was hit.

“Cool,” I said, as I walked up. Rusty galloped up and dropped the ball at Ben's feet. Ben had covered the Wiffle ball with a multicolored skin of rubber bands.

Ben picked up the ball. “Sails like crazy,” he said and belted it down the lawn. The dog sucked in a foot of tongue and bolted after it.

“Where'd you get the rubber bands?”

“Found 'em in the laundry room basket when I burned the trash yesterday.”

Rusty shit rubber bands for a week.

I
FOUND MARG CHATTING
with a bookkeeping client when I walked into the office. Lily Vincenti had not arrived. Marg pushed a short stack of telephone messages across the desk to me as I walked by.

At my desk, I thumbed through them. Lily would be at least a half hour late. Detective Van Huis would be in his office until noon: come and get your pistol. Detective Archer Flynt: urgent that you be at the Beltline Bar today by 12:30. The last message had festered for a day: call Leonard Stanton at the Channel Five security office. He'd left the number.

I dialed up Leonard.

He said, “Security.” I recognized his voice.

“Hey, Sarge, Art Hardin,” I said. “What's up?”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Not on TV,” I said. “I still owe my attorney for handling the trouble my last appearance caused.”

“Maybe we can help you with the tab. I have a job for you, but I don't want to discuss it on the telephone.”

“Can you give me a thumbnail sketch?”

“You can always say no in person,” said Leonard.

“Two o'clockish all right?”

“I'll be at the security desk.”

“See you then.”

I hung up and dialed Van Huis on his inside line. “You really have my Detonics or are you looking to arrest me again?”

“Come and confess to something,” said Van Huis. “I'll see what I can do. I'm out of here at noon.”

“I think I heard this story before.”

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” said Van Huis. “Your pistol's in my desk until noon. After that it goes back to property, and you'll need a lawyer and a friendly judge to get it back.”

“I'm on my way.”

Van Huis said, “Don't stop at the bank.” He hung up.

I checked my watch. Twenty minutes. I hustled down to Kentwood Police Department. They'd moved into their new building, the old one having been so cramped they had to take turns breathing. The desk sergeant told me to follow him.

After twenty-three years on the police force, Detective Gerald Van Huis had finally scored a real office. His old name placard looked shabby parked atop a brand-new Steelcase desk. The rest of his duffle filled the cartons stacked by the coatrack.

“Hey Jerry,” I said, “you got a door and everything.”

Van Huis, in his shirt sleeves with his tie loose, flopped a printed form on the desk and said, “A lot of the guys wanted me to thank you.”

“I do something right?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he said. “You took your last jug-fuck down to Detroit. We all got home for dinner.” He slapped a ballpoint pen on the form. “Ten minutes, I got to walk over to the district court.”

I picked up the pen.

“Detroit's a big town,” said Van Huis. “Lots of opportunity. I got a whole list of guys that said they'd help you pack up your office.”

“You're all heart,” I said and pushed the form back to him. “This is a Voluntary Firearms Destruction form.”

“Fancy that,” said Van Huis. “You know, I'm just not organized in my new office yet.”

I wagged a finger at him. “You're still mad.”

“Art,” he said. “Come on. You act like I'd burn your ass the first chance I got.” He opened a drawer, took out an evidence bag with my pistol in it, and set it on the desk. “Count the bullets, the magazines, and sign the receipt. They shot two rounds for comparison.”

I took the pistol out of the bag and then thumbed the bullets out of the magazines onto his desk. “Three magazines,” I said. “Just right.”

“What is this, the third time? You know, the examiner has to have your lands and grooves committed to memory by now. Sooner or later, he's going to find one of your strays.”

“I doubt that,” I said. “I change the barrel, firing pin, extractor, and
ejector and dress up the bolt face every time I get it back from the examiner.”

“See?” asked Van Huis. “You got an attitude problem. You always act like someone is out to screw you.”

“I'd hire a shrink if I wasn't already spending all my money on attorneys.”

“My heart pumps peanut butter for you,” said Van Huis. He opened his top desk drawer and skidded a book of raffle tickets across the desk to me. “You got a big lawn, don't you? My church is raffling a new John Deere lawn tractor. Tickets are a buck apiece, six for five dollars.”

“I only buy these things because if I win it'll piss you off.”

“You win, I'll mow your lawn the first time myself,” said Van Huis.

Anybody but Van Huis, and I'd have made 'em put it in writing.

• • •

Marg and Lily Vincenti stifled their laughter when I breezed in the door. Lily wore sunglasses and the suit I'd seen at the TV station. Her eye was no longer bandaged. She'd parked her luggage—a suitcase and a two-suiter—on the floor near her feet.

“I miss something good?” I asked.

“No,” said Marg, color rising in her face. She'd done her hair up for the day and wore a floral blouse over a pleated skirt, casual attire for Marg.

“Flying out today?” I asked.

“Four o'clock,” said Lily, “but I had to check out of my room.”

“Some pressing reason you have to be back?”

“I have a business to run,” said Lily. She stood up.

I handed her the picture Jack Vincent Jr. had given me of his father wearing his state police uniform. Taken before his eye injury, it nonetheless left little room for doubt. “Is that your dad?”

Lily studied the photo, her mouth fell wide, and she crumpled onto the sofa. “Oh my God!”

“Your father's name was Jack Vincent,” I said, “not John Vincenti. He's buried at Roseland Park Cemetery, just north of Detroit on Woodward Avenue.”

Lily turned up her face to ask, “He was a policeman?”

“He was when the picture was taken,” I said. “He retired after he injured an eye in a car crash.”

“Where did you get this picture?”

I smiled and said, “From your brother. He said he'd like to meet you.”

Lily catapulted off the sofa with a shriek and threw her arms around
my neck. Marg abandoned her chair and made it a huddle-hug with her arms around both of us.

“Where is he?” asked Lily.

“In Detroit,” I said. “He's a police lieutenant.”

“Oh, fantastic! How'd you find out?”

I reached around Marg and Lily and patted. “Let's all sit down. This is a little complicated,” I said. “I still don't have all the answers.”

Lily flopped back onto the sofa like the strings to her legs had been cut. Marg mentioned coffee and headed for the investigator's room. Lily pulled off her sunglasses and dug tissue out of her purse. Her left eye still looked like a road map, but some white space had opened between the red lines.

When she finished wiping up, I gave her my card with Jack Vincent Jr.'s address and telephone number written on the back.

Marg walked back into the room with coffee—mine black, Lily's with cream. “What's his name?” asked Lily.

“Jack Vincent Jr.,” I said.

Lily slipped her glasses back on to take the cup—the picture and card gripped so tightly in her left hand that they quivered. “Thank you,” she said to Marg and turned back to me. “Does he know what happened?”

“No, your father and his mother were divorced when he was five. He never really knew your father, and he's still kind of angry about the divorce.”

“Did my father abandon him, too?” Lily's voice tightened to a squeak.

“Policemen get divorced,” said Marg. “Marriage and police work can be like oil and water. That's just an unfortunate fact of life.”

Lily set her coffee and glasses on the corner of Marg's desk and started working the tissue on her eyes again.

“Looks to me like your father sent you and your mother to visit her parents so you'd be safe. He probably knew he was in danger,” I said.

“Why did my father change his name?” asked Lily. “Why did they tell us he disappeared?”

“If this was simple,” I said, “it wouldn't have taken thirty years to unravel. I hope you can help me with the rest.”

“I don't see how.” Lily slipped her glasses back on.

“Where were your parents married? There's no record of their marriage in Detroit.”

“My parents were married in Okinawa.”

“Does your mother read English?”

Lily answered with a shake of her head, thought for a moment, and said, “Why would my father conceal his real name?”

“Same reason he used a Laundromat as his home address.”

“You know something that you're not telling me.”

“I suspect something I can't verify yet,” I said. “I have a meeting with a state police detective this morning, and I'm going to need the picture I gave you.”

“You suspect what?” Lily picked up her coffee, studying me from the dark safety of her glasses, and took a cautious sip.

I suspected that Jack Vincent had been working undercover or as a paid informant. When he turned up dead, they quietly buried the body but left his cover identity twisting in the silent currents of criminal prosecutions that followed his arrest for bookmaking and racketeering. Dead, Jack Vincent was a law-enforcement embarrassment. Missing, John Vincenti threatened to be a witness. True, the Mob had sanctioned the hit, but only the guys who killed Vincenti knew for sure. The cops, who had a picture, probably scooped them and kept them quiet.