Shoot the Woman First (12 page)

“My name's Frank Burke.” He pulled a plastic chair closer to the bed, sat. “That mean anything to you?”

“Should it?” He looked toward the door.

“He's not out there,” Burke said. “He's taking a break.” He looked up at the screen. “What are you watching there?
Sanford and Son
reruns?”

“I asked what you want.”

“You're older than most of Marquis's boys. Must mean you're higher on the food chain, right? How's the shoulder? You right-handed?”

Freeman watched him, didn't answer.

“I got shot once,” Burke said. “In the stomach. It was back in '91, when shit was going crazy here with all the crack. I was lucky, it was just a .22. Cheap street gun. Still hurt like a mother, though. Guy who shot me was named Baby-Boy Roberts. You ever hear of him?”

Freeman shook his head.

“Worked for the Chambers Brothers,” Burke said. “Actually, he worked for somebody worked for the Chambers Brothers. I'm sure they had no idea who he was.”

“Don't know the man.”

“It was a straight buy-and-bust, undercover. When Baby-Boy saw what the deal was, he pulled out this piece-of-shit revolver, goddamn thing held together by electrician's tape, and started blasting. He got me with the first one, the next two missed. Couldn't shoot for shit, lucky for me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Then I put a .38 steel jacket in his left eye, blew the back of his head all over a brick wall.”

“Why you telling me this?”

“So we get to know each other a little. Find our common ground.”

“Man, I don't know who the fuck you are. And I got nothing to say to you.”

Burke took out his cell, tossed it on the bed. “I got Marquis on speed dial. You want to talk to him?”

Freeman looked at the phone.

“Who do you think gave me your name, dickwag?” Burke said. “Stop wasting my time.”

“I don't know what you talking about.”

“You talk to Damien already? He been by here?”

“Damien who?”

Burke picked up the phone, put it back in his pocket. Freeman looked back up at the screen. Burke reached over, took the television remote from his lap.

“Hey, what you doing—”

Burke found the button, and the screen went dark. “I need your undivided attention here, Willie, or we're going to get off on the wrong foot.”

He put the remote on the bedside stand, out of Freeman's reach. “I'll ask again. Damien been here?”

“Who's that?”

“Careful how you play this, Willie. I admire you. You're a good man. Loyal. Hell, Marquis should give you a bonus for catching those hot ones, being the only one with the balls to grab some iron, return fire.”

He looked at Freeman's IV setup, two clear bags hanging from a J-shaped pole above the monitor.

“What they got you on? Demerol drip? Antibiotics, too, right? Good shit, Demerol. You'll need a lot of it in the next couple weeks. Private doctor, too, and a physical therapist. Not to mention a lawyer. Marquis gonna pay for all that?”

“I don't need any lawyer.”

“You will. I've got friends at Beaubien Street, and word is they're putting a charge on you for the AK. You're looking at a mandatory ten years there.”

“I ain't taking no charge.
I
was the one got shot.”

“Won't make any difference. You were the one with the weapon. And aside from Detroit PD, you'll have Marquis to worry about.”

“Why?”

“Because it was a setup, right? Only way it makes sense. That's what I told him.”

“Wasn't no setup.”

He looked past Burke to the door.

“Nobody's coming in here until I let them,” Burke said. “It's just you and me, William. Now, Marquis gave me a list of seven names. You, the two boys in the Armada, and four others who knew about the drop-off. Not counting Damien. You were the easiest to find, so here I am.”

“I got nothing to say.”

“Let me show you something. Just for the sake of argument.” He leaned forward, took the leather slapjack from his back pocket. “Ever see one of these?”

Freeman looked at it.

“This thing belongs in a museum now, but when I first joined the department, all the old-timers carried these.” He tapped the thick end on the bed rail, made it clang and vibrate. “Those old guys really knew how to use these, especially up close. All that lead shot sewn into the business end. Just a flick of the wrist”—he slapped it against the bed rail again, harder this time—“and they could really put the hurt on you. Crack a skull. Break an elbow or knee, no problem.”

“What about it?”

“Well, we can have a civil conversation here, or it can go the other way, too. I can put a pillow over your face, start whaling on that shoulder.” He nodded at the bandage. “In five seconds I'll fuck up what it took those doctors five hours to fix. You'll be jacking off with your left hand for the rest of your life.”

Freeman tried to sit up straighter, his face tightened with pain.

“You know I mean it,” Burke said.

“Ain't no need to talk like that.” The fear in him now.

“Willie, let's get some things straight. You're a piece of shit, works for a dope dealer. We both know that. I spent twenty-five years dealing with pieces of shit like you. That was my job. So let's back up a little. You talk to Damien?”

Freeman shifted his arm in the sling. “Yeah, he was here.”

“When?”

“This afternoon. Right after they moved me.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I thought you said you were working for Marquis?”

“I'm not working for anyone. What did you tell him?”

“Just what I saw.”

“And what was that?”

“How much you hear?”

“Enough that if you try to feed me a line of crap, I'll know it. How many of them were there?”

Freeman drew a deep breath, let it out. “Four. At least. One drove the truck that hit us. There were three more in the van. Two of them came out, did the drop car. Driver stayed inside the whole time. I never saw him.”

“But you saw the others?”

“They wore masks.”

“They white, black?”

“Couldn't tell.”

“You're leaving something out.”

Freeman looked away. Burke brought the chair closer, put the slapjack away.

“You know what Damien's doing right now?” he said. “He's talking to the others on that list, trying to find out what happened. And some of them, to save their own asses, are going to point the finger at you. Now, Damien doesn't have to worry about you. He knows where you are, that you aren't going anywhere. He'll take his time. And when he finds out what he wants, he'll be back to take care of business.”

“You don't know that.”

“But I do. Now tell me, when all that lead was flying, you hit anyone?”

He inched higher in the bed. “Just one.”

“Kill him?”

“I thought so, at first, 'cause it was a clean shot, and she went down fast. But the other two helped her into the van. Looked like she was moving okay by then.”

“She?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“What's that mean, you ‘think'?”

“From the shape of her, way she ran, I'd say a woman.”

“Try again.”

“You asked me what I saw.”

Burke frowned. “That's some sad bullshit you're trying to put over on me.” He took the slapjack from his pocket again.

“Hold up. That's no bullshit.”

“You tell Damien this?”

Freeman nodded.

“Let me ask you,” Burke said. “How many women you know in D-Town, gangsta bitches, run with a slick crew like that?”

“Man, I don't know.”

“How about none?” He rested the slapjack on his leg. “What did those boys with you see?”

“They didn't see shit. That truck came out of nowhere, knocked us all on our asses. Then came the smoke, someone popping caps outside. Those boys stayed on the floor the whole time. After I went down, they piled out of there, hauled ass. Left all their shit behind.”

“Left you behind, too. How much money was in the Jetta?”

“Not my business what was in there.”

He put the slapjack away, thought it through. Damien already one step ahead of him. Marquis playing them against each other, waiting to see who got to the money first. Smart.

“The crew that took you down knew too much,” Burke said. “Odds are someone on that list gave it up. That's what Marquis will think, true or not. Maybe he'll decide it was you.”

“Don't say shit like that.”

“It's the truth, Willie. This train's rolling. You want to get out in front of it, or run over and dragged behind? Your choice.”

“Marquis and I go back a long way.”

“Doesn't matter. This is business. He'll whack all of you just to be sure. You'll end up in a vacant on the East Side, two in the head, courtesy of his brother. Even if you're in County, waiting trial, he'll get to you. Have someone throw your ass over the tier with an extension cord around your neck. You know I'm right.”

Freeman shook his head, looked away.

“Here's my advice,” Burke said. “Get out of Detroit. Soon as you can. Jump bail if you have to, whatever. Just get away. Even if he doesn't find out who took his money, Marquis will tie up the loose ends, make an example out of all of you.”

“What you want from me?”

Burke took the calfskin card holder from his inside pocket, slipped out a card. It read
INVESTIGATIONS, CORPORATE
/
PERSONAL
, and in smaller type,
FRANCIS X. BURKE.
No phone number or address. He turned it over, took out a silver pen, wrote his cell number on the back.

“Might be you could save me some time,” he said. “Take the heat off yourself as well. And there's money in it for you.”

“What money?”

“Money I'd give you. Running money. Enough to get away somewhere, get clear. I can help you do that, too. I know a lot of people.”

Burke dropped the card in his lap.

“Somebody on the inside made this happen,” he said. “Somebody you know. You remember anything else—a name, a conversation, anything—you call me. Not Marquis, not Damien. Just me. Do that and I might be able to keep you alive. With some cash for your trouble as well.”

“How much?”

“Give me a name—one that pays off—and we'll talk about it.”

“I'm supposed to trust you now?”

“Willie, I'm the only one you
can
trust. Marquis won't sit still for someone taking his money. Or somebody else standing by letting it happen. Stay around here and you're a dead man.”

Freeman picked up the card.

“This right now,” Burke said, “is where this life led you. There's no going back to the way things were. You need to accept that.”

He took two fifties from his coat pocket, tucked them in Freeman's sling.

“A name, that's all I need. Think about it, Willie. And do the smart thing.”

 

TWELVE

Pinned to the front door was a red sheet of paper that said, in large black type,
FORECLOSURE NOTICE
. Paragraphs of smaller print, then at the bottom, in the same black font,
KEEP OUT.

Crissa rang the doorbell, listened to it sound inside. The house was yellow stucco, the paint sun-faded, the yard full of weeds. Through a gap in the front blinds, she could see a bare floor littered with trash—fast-food containers, cigarette butts, a naked Barbie doll with one arm missing. She tried the door. Locked.

She'd taken Amtrak from Metro Park to Philadelphia, changed there for the train to Orlando. An hour to Philly, and another twenty to Florida. She'd slept fitfully in her seat, waking every few hours. Leaving the train that morning, she'd carried two suitcases, one with clothes, the other with eighty thousand dollars in banded cash.

A taxi had taken her to a hotel near the airport. There she'd rented a Ford Fusion for the half-hour drive north to Winter Park, found the address she'd gotten from an Internet database. It was a neighborhood of single-story crackerbox houses with missing shingles, dead lawns, and ten-year-old cars.

She rang the bell again, then went around to the backyard. Wind-blown trash, yellow weeds, dog droppings. The back windows and door were plywooded over. She felt a vague depression settling over her. She knew neighborhoods like this, had lived in them.

“That's private property.”

She heard a screen door open, turned to see a woman come out onto the back porch of the neighboring house. She was in her sixties, stringy gray hair brushed back, holding a faded housecoat closed with one hand. A small dog barked behind her. She pushed it back inside, closed the screen. The barking kept on, a flat yapping with long pauses in between.

Crissa took off her sunglasses, hung them from the collar of her T-shirt, said, “Hi, maybe you can help me. I'm looking for the family that lived here.”

The woman said, “Josephine, hush up,” and the dog growled low, then went quiet. “There's nobody there now.”

“I can see that,” Crissa said. “How long have they been gone?”

The woman stepped down into the yard. “Are you from the bank?”

“No, just a friend of the family.”

“And you didn't know they were gone?”

“I didn't.”

“Sheriff's office put them out. They had some furniture and things, went out on the lawn. It all got picked over. Bunch of vultures around here.”

“They were evicted?” Crissa said.

“Took long enough. It's a shame what was going on there.”

“What do you mean?”

“You say you know the family?”

Crissa took a breath, deciding how to play it, what to say next.