Split Images (1981) (13 page)

"Jesus Christ, you mean it? Curtis? "

"You didn't hear about it? It was on the news."

"How'm I gonna hear about it? I'm driving around the fucking limo all day. Pick these guys up, take 'em the plant. Pick 'em up again, take 'em out the airport. Listen, you find the guy did it let me know. I want to shake the fucker's hand.""What plant?"

"Daniels. He's selling all his equipment. Got these buyers in from Cleveland, Indianapolis, Christ, Mexico, Japan. Couple Japs, they come all the way over here to buy some machines that turn out nuts and bolts. Big fuckers--I mean the machines, like drill presses. Another guy don't speak nothing but Kraut, he comes all the way from West Germany."

"How about around ten this morning, a little before?"

"I left home quarter to ten, from Grosse Pointe.

Eight-nine-nine Lake Shore. Ask the cook, he'll tell you. Fucking Ukrainian."

"Who'd you pick up at the Plaza?"

"What's that, the one at the RenCen? I never picked anybody up there."

"Didn't go near it, uh?"

"No, first thing I picked up these guys out at the airport. Fly in, fly out. Daniels had riggers there right at the plant. Some guys from the Teamsters, two-nine-nine. Give the buyers an estimate right on the spot, how much to haul the shit out. The auction isn't suppose to be till Monday, but Daniels, he can't fucking wait to get out of the nuts and bolts business. It was okay for his old man but Robbie, see, he's a friend of George Hamilton, whoever the fuck George Hamilton is. I met him, I still don't know.""You drove the Cadillac?"

"What do you think I pick 'em up in, the fucking Omni?"

There was a yellow legal pad next to the typewriter. Bryan said, "Write the names on there and the approximate time you picked them up."

"I don't know their names."

"You can get them, can't you?"

"I don't know. I'll see."

Bryan opened the door several inches, glanced out and closed it again.

"Coffee's not ready yet. You want to wait?"

"You mean," Walter said, "do I want to leave now or do I want to wait till the cof fee's done? Jesus Christ," Walter said, getting up off the folding chair.

Bryan pushed the door open all the way, caught Malik's eye and saw one of the valet-parking attendants look over his shoulder.

"Quentin's gonna drive you home."

"Tell that dinge I don't need any conversation this trip. Fucker never shuts up," Walter said, pulling down the sleeve of his gray suit, brushing at invisible dirt. He followed Bryan through the squad room now and out into the hallway to the elevators. Here, Walter narrowed his eyes, turned back to the squad room as Quentin came out putting on his suit coat, Walter catching a glimpse of the three valet-parking attendants looking this way. The door closed."Wait a minute," Walter said. "What's this shit going on?"

Bryan pushed the elevator button again. Quentin was adjusting his suitcoat.

"You brought me up here to get eyeballed, didn't you? Who're those guys. You try and put me in the Plaza today--that where they're from?"

"They park cars," Bryan said.

"Hey, I used to pull this kind of shit too, you know. You bring me up here, not a fucking shred of probable cause, hoping one of those monkeys'll cop on me, huh?" Walter stopped. He looked at the door again and said in a much quieter tone, "What'd you say they do?"

"They park cars," Bryan said, "at the Detroit Plaza Hotel. Where Curtis Moore used to park cars till somebody took him out."

"How?"

"We don't know yet."

"Bullshit--was he shot, stabbed, what?"

"Shot. Four times."

"What kind of gun?"

"That's what I meant, we don't know yet."

"The guys up in Firearms know," Walter said.

"You telling me they haven't given you the ballistics yet? Bullshit."

Bryan said, "Thanks for coming, Walter."

When Quentin Terry got back from Grosse Pointe he met them at the Athens in Greektown, the cop bar. Parrish had gone home to watch "Hill Street Blues." Bryan, Annie and Malik were about ready to leave, having a last beer, picking over the information they got from the valet-parking attendants and the cashier, which amounted to almost nothing.

One of them didn't know Curtis had been working this morning. The others saw him, yeah, but didn't notice anything funny going on or Curtis talking to anybody in particular. The one who found Curtis's body said that blood led him to it; he thought at first somebody had spilled paint. The cashier remembered Curtis coming in, getting some keys from where they hung on hooks, Curtis saying a man needed something from his car; but people were at the window, she was too busy to notice anything. Except when the police came and she heard about Curtis, she remembered him getting the keys. No, there was nothing unusual about the keys that she remembered. Wait now--or did it have some kind of a charm or good-luck piece on it? She'd try to remember and let them know.

Quentin Terry said, "Walter didn't hardly open his mouth in the car. I told him a couple Polish jokes, the man didn't even smile."

Bryan said, "He ask you about the gun?"

"Yeah, he tried different ways," Quentin said."Especially interested if the gunshots were through and through. Wanting to find out the caliber."

"He was surprised when I first told him," Bryan said. "Couldn't believe it. The guy that did it, I think if he'd walked in Walter would've put his arms around him and kissed him."

Malik said, "Kissed him, he'd have blown him."

"But out in the hall," Bryan said, "he was different. You notice?"

Quentin said, "Like something begun to bother him."

"Not so much that we'd set him up," Bryan said.

"It was when he found out those guys in there parked cars. Why would that bother him?"

He walked with Annie Maguire to the parking structure on St. Antoine, past the Saturday-night lineup waiting to get in the Hellas Cafe. She asked him where his girl friend was.

"I just met her yesterday, at Walter's hearing."

Annie said, "You have to start somewhere." She said, "I bet she's from a big family."

"I don't know. She didn't say."

"Haven't gotten into all that yet."

"Well, I don't know if we will," Bryan said. "She went home. Tucson, Arizona."

"She told you she'd be back, didn't she?"

"That's what she says, I don't know."

"Come on, don't play dumb, Bryan."

"I mean it. I don't know what she's thinking.""Well, this afternoon," Annie said, "she took her eyes off you maybe once."

"Is that right?" Bryan said. "I didn't notice.

Annie stopped and looked around. "Isn't that your car back there?"

They had walked past Bryan's seven-year-old BMW. It was faded gray with rust spots along the chrome like sores. He said, "It looks like mine."

Annie said, "You need to get away, Bryan. Soon."

Daniels wasn't in his study when Walter got home and he couldn't go up the front stairs to look for him. He had to go through the pantry and the kitchen to the goddamn back stairs and go up that way if he was going to his room. The bathroom door was closed. Walter knocked. He heard the sound of the cook's voice give him a grunt. "Wash your hands when you're done!" Walter called through the door. Fucking Ukrainian. He went downstairs again to use the other john, the powder room in the front hall.

The black Mercedes sedan was gone from the garage. The yellow Mercedes convertible that Daniels called a drop-head was there. The Cadillac was there and the Dodge Omni that nobody used was there. So Daniels could've taken the big Mercedes or his wife could've. Walter hadn't said two words to the wife. It was a fucked-up house. No-body talked to anybody. Nobody even argued. The place was like a hotel where you passed people in the hall and everybody was polite but nobody seemed to give a shit about anything.

Walter heard a car; somebody dropping Mrs.

Daniels off. She came in to find him sitting on the Queen Anne bench in the front hall, cocked a hip as she looked at him and smiled, sort of half-closing her eyes.

"You've been waiting for me, haven't you?"

Walter said, "Pardon?"

Mrs. Daniels seemed a little high. No question about it--all at once sinking down next to him in her lynx fur that Walter remembered from Robbery would run about eight, nine grand. She smelled of booze, but she smelled good too, leaning against him now. He didn't know what was going on. Her hair was in his face, but he'd have to touch her, hold her up if he tried to move. Now she was raising her face to look at him. He felt her hand on his thigh, trying to squeeze it but not able to get any purchase. He didn't know what was going on.

Mrs. Daniels said, "Can I ask you a question, Walter?"

He felt her hand crawl to his fly--Christ!--and probe until she found his member.

"What do you call one of these in Polish?"

Walter sat as straight as he could, not moving.

"It's called . . . it's usually they call it a hooyek.""A hooyek." Mrs. Daniels spoke the word lovingly. She let go, got up and crossed to the stairway, weaving just a little. A hand on the balustrade, she looked back at him. "A hooyek? "

"That's correct," Walter said. "H-u-j-e-k, hoo- yek."

"Thank you," Mrs. Daniels said. She went upstairs.

Walter fell asleep. He opened his eyes and thought the woman was back and got a shock when he saw it was Mr. Daniels sitting next to him now, in his raincoat. Daniels said, "What time's the next bus?"

It wasn't like a hotel, it was like a fucking state hospital--Ionia or the Forensic Center. It was in Walter's mind to go upstairs and pack, right now, get the hell out.

Daniels said, "You awake?"

His voice sounded all right. Walter was sure he'd been drinking though; he could smell it.

"Yeah, I'm awake."

"You don't have to wait up for me, Walter."

"I got to ask you something. In the study."

"There's nobody around."

"Your wife was here." Walter looked at his watch. "Jesus, almost an hour ago."

"Come on," Daniels said, getting up.

He poured himself a cognac from the portablebar next to the television set, rolled amber reflections in the snifter glass, raised it to his face, then seemed to remember Walter, fidgeting, moving about by the desk.

"You want one?"

"I want to know something," Walter said. "I want to know if it was you did Curtis Moore."

Daniels said, "The guy who was gonna testify against you and was shot and killed in the parking garage of the Detroit Plaza with a High Standard Field King twenty-two? No. It must've been someone else."

Walter sat down. "I knew it. They pick me up, bring me down to 1300, I'm wondering what the fuck's going on--it was you. I knew it, but I don't believe it."

"Good," Robbie said. "No one else will either."

He sipped the cognac and rolled it around in his mouth now before swallowing. "Goddamn raw fish and seaweed. I should've taken them to the Chop House."

Walter said, "Mr. Daniels, I was a police officer twenty, almost twenty-one years. There is no way you can commit a homicide at a place like that, all those people around, and get away with it. There's no way in the world."

Robbie said, "Are you relieved, I mean that he's dead?"

"What I feel--yes, I am," Walter said. "But whatI happen to feel has nothing to do with it. I appreciate your, well, your doing it for my sake. But, Mr.

Daniels, I'm afraid you're gonna be in the worst trouble in your life. I can't believe it." He looked at Daniels with a vacant expression that said there was no hope, it was all over.

"Yes or no," Robbie said, "did Curtis deserve what he got?"

Walter nodded. "There's no question about that.

Yes."

"You're enormously pleased he's out of the way?"

"Sure I am, but--"

"You were questioned by the police?"

"Bryan Hurd. The guy at the hearing."

"Did my name come up?"

"No, it didn't."

"Then I'm not a suspect, am I?"

Walter looked up. It did not occur to him until this moment that Daniels could possibly get away with it.

"Where did you tell them you were?" Daniels asked.

"At the time? Here. Or picking up the buyers."

"He believe you?"

"Yeah. I think he knows I didn't do it."

"Then what're you worried about?"

"What'm I worried about? You. What's your story?""What do I need a story for if I'm not a suspect?"

"Because it can get around to you," Walter said.

"One thing leads to another. Pick up something here, pick up a piece of information there. Somebody saw a car. Next fucking thing they're knocking on the door."

"Well, I was with somebody too, if it ever comes to that," Robbie said. "I picked up some of 'em didn't I? The Japs."