Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 16 - Poison Blonde (23 page)

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Authors: Loren D. Estleman

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BOOK: Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 16 - Poison Blonde

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TWENTY-EIGHT

T
he lagoon rippled. “The rebel boyfriend? Why him?”

“He had a medical background, and being a passionate and dedicated leader, he’d know how to use it to obtain the medicines you need to fight a dirty war with lots of casualties. Many of them are poisonous if not diluted, Stelazine more than most.”

“That’s how. I asked why.”

“Gilia said Suerto would betray him. She didn’t mean sexually; she was talking about spying for the enemy. She thought he didn’t know. Probably he was a better general than she gave him credit for. He identified the problem and eliminated it, with minimal loss.” I held up one index finger.

“How much of that is guesswork?”

“As much as needed. The revolution’s over, and so is Nico. Everything else is mop-up.”

Alderdyce rewound the tape, popped it out of the camera, and slipped it into his side pocket. He said he’d shelve it with the training videos.

I got up from the table. I felt like I’d been sitting in the bleachers for twelve innings. “What about the happy Armenian?”

“He’s been kissing his way up the chain of command since
he made plainclothes. Inspector’s as far as he’s gotten this year. Forget him.”

“Now all we have to worry about is CNN,
Entertainment Tonight
, and
People
.”

“We had security problems with her video. If they see through that, we’ll tell ’em a bunch of new ones. Best way to keep a secret is tell a thousand lies. That way, whatever leaks out gets lost in the flood. You should understand that better than anyone.” He opened the door. “She wants to see you.”

I didn’t ask who. “Where?”

“Her hotel, I guess. I left word to kick her an hour ago.”

“I need to catch supper first.”

“I hear the room service at the Hyatt doesn’t suck.”

“No good, John. I like ’em tall and brassy with tattoos.”

“Try that on someone who hasn’t known you since the sandbox.”

“We still know each other?”

“Not just yet. You played this like a sucker from Day One.”

“I know. It wouldn’t have been my first choice if there were a way to play it smart.”

“It’s still happening. Matador knows you’re here. What do you think he’ll do now that Mariposa’s police property?”

“He’s tried to kill me before. The novelty’s run out.”

“I bet you said the same thing when he came at you with that hot penny. I’d have paid to see that.”

On my way out I saw the little sergeant talking to the goodlooking Domestic Disturbances detective in the red skirt. She was shaping her nails at her desk with a file attached to a key ring shaped like a miniature set of brass knuckles. He was in up to his neck and didn’t seem to notice me.

The snow had stopped, leaving cottony fluff on the streetlamps and my car, which was parked legally this time. When I reached in for the brush, Gilia was sitting on the passenger’s side in her costly counterfeit furs. The hat was a Russian shako type and she had the tall collar of her coat turned up for warmth. Her face looked small and almost calm. She smiled shyly.

“It looked like the car you would drive. I knew I’d find your name on the papers in the glove box. I expected a gun.”

“It comes up out of the hood at rush hour. Didn’t the cops offer you a ride?”

“I said I had one. Did I lie?”

“There’s a brush on the floor on your side. I need it.”

“Brush?” She looked down. The domelight didn’t reach.

“It’s like a big toothbrush. For the snow. In this zip code we need to see to drive.”

She found it and passed it across the seat. She had on snug black leather gloves with fur trim, but she was shivering and her breath curled. I got in, started the engine, and showed her how to work the defroster. The snow pushed off about as easily as wet laundry and I had to use the scraper hard on the clotted ice on the windows, but by the time I got to the windshield the heat from inside had begun to melt it. The car was toasty when I tossed the brush into the back and slid under the wheel. She’d removed the gloves and opened her coat, underneath which was a long red knitted wool dress that clung to her like poured honey.

“I never saw snow in my life until the first time I played Denver,” she said. “It’s still kind of alien to me.”

“That’s the way it looks to me every December.” I tugged on the headlamps. “Dearborn?”

“Where do you live?”

“Refrigerator carton on Livernois.”

“Seriously.”

“Someone lives in a refrigerator carton on Livernois. I bet he’s serious about it.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“Nothing personal. My guess is you don’t invite yourself to addresses in Beverly Hills. You wait to be asked. Why you should think it’s any different here is the point at issue.”

“If you think I’m trying to take you to bed—”

“It’s been done. Right now I’m hungry, and all I’ve got in the house is a box of Morton’s salt.”

“Where’s a good restaurant?”

“Toledo.”

“Where’s that?”

“Ohio.”

“There must be something closer.”

“There’s Greektown, but I don’t feel like it. The waiters set fire to things and yell. In the old days they called that pillaging.”

“Well, I don’t want to go back to the Hyatt. We might run into Hector.”

“You two fall out?”

“Not exactly. Hector’s like—Greektown. Sometimes I don’t feel like him. Where are we going?”

I’d pulled out into the street. “I live in a Polish neighborhood. There’s a take-out place not far from me, if you don’t mind garlic.”

“You really don’t want to go to bed, do you? What happened to not inviting myself to the castle keep?”

“I’m inviting you.”

“You’re an exasperating man.”

“That’s what you get when you’ve been kidnapped, tortured, threatened by cops, and had dogs set on you. Incidentally, you didn’t kill Angela Suerto. Zubara

n backed up your story. That bird thing brought him around.”

She rode for a block in silence. “Does it matter?”

“It matters a hell of a lot to me. Whether it matters to Washington is between them and your attorney. Alderdyce is sitting on it for now, but too many know. Did you get in touch with your lawyer like I said?”

“He’s aware of the situation. Do the police think I killed Jillian Rubio?”

“They’re on the fence. They’re not like the cops you’re familiar with. They don’t make up their minds until most of the precincts are heard from.”

“What about you?”

“I think if you wanted her dead you’d use just about anything but what was used.” I stopped for a light, pumping the brakes to avoid locking the wheels. “Zubara

n said a friendly guard smuggled your name in to him before he was sprung. Who do you think arranged that?”

“I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “Nico’s whore, possibly, to get me into trouble.”

“Uh-uh. She’d have sent it to the warden or the police. The professor thought it was meant to encourage him. He was wrong too.”

We watched a night-crawling diesel rig cut the corner off a left turn onto our street, missing the Cutlass’ left front fender by inches. The light was green by the time it cleared. I started forward.

“Who, then?” asked Gilia.

“Nico. He sent it so Zubara

n would be able to identify you later, to give you an alibi for the night of Suerto’s murder. He’d planned it that far ahead. I guess he loved you in his fashion.”

She thought about that for half a mile. “I underestimated him. Poor Nico.”

“There are two ways to lose a war: trusting too much and not trusting at all. He was coming to the halfway point the night he sent you to rescue the professor. I don’t know where he was when they caught him. Too far the other way, maybe. But he did what he could to protect you.”

“I thought he was showing faith in me.”

“He was. If an alibi was all he was offering, he could have sent you into town for cigarettes.”

“You told the police all this?”

“If I hadn’t, one of us would still be in custody. Don’t undersell Washington the way you undersold Nico. They have entirely different protocols for foreign revolutionaries and murderers. The wheels turn more slowly. A smart lawyer ought to be able to jam a stick between the spokes.”

“But not if I’m accused of killing Jillian Rubio.”

“That’s next on the list. But only after supper.” I wheeled into the little cleared parking lot of the takeout place on Joseph Campau.

Gilia had the appetites of a proletariat. Peering through the thick glass in the ancient display case she chose kielbasa sandwiches with heavy slices of pumpernickel and cabbage soup from a massive crock. I threw in a container of turtle soup and
a quart of milk, paid the counterman, an incongruous black in a white apron and hairnet, and carried the greasy sack out to the car. A few minutes later we pulled into my garage.

I helped her out of her coat and put it and her hat in a closet while she shook out her mane. She took the tour of the living room as I poured out the milk and transferred the food from paper and Styrofoam to crockery.

“Such a masculine house,” she said when she returned. Silhouetted against the lamplight in the doorway, the knitted dress didn’t give my imagination much to work with.

“I sweep out the hormones every day, but they keep coming back.” I laid out napkins on the kitchen table.

“Was there ever a
Mrs.
Walker?”

“That was over before you were born.”

“You’re not so old.”

“You’re not so young. Sit.”

She slid into the nook. “Are you Polish?”

“I’m not anything.” I took a long drink of milk. I was thirstier than I was hungry. No one had offered me so much as a glass of water at 1300.

“I thought all Americans came from somewhere else, except of course the Indians.”