Summer Cool - A Jack Paine Mystery (Jack Paine Mysteries) (8 page)

Koval, the skinny one, nodded. "Two buildings. They're
pigsties."

"And what are you if you live in them?"

"We owe him rent," Kohl said.

"Get up," Paine said.

They both rose, warily.

"Here's the story," Paine said. He reached under his desk,
turned off the tape recorder. "I see you around here again, I
bust your heads. Then I get you arrested. I want you to tell
Anapolos he's a scumbag. Got that?"

They nodded, looking like schoolboys caught stealing
milk money.

"And if it helps," Paine said, as they slouched toward the
door, "You don't owe Anapolos rent anymore. In fact, you've
got the next six months rent free."

Koval and Kohl looked at Paine blankly.

"Get out," Paine said.

Paine closed the door behind them, and turned on his message machine.

Chief Bryers' voice was on the tape immediately. It said,
"Paine,
call me." The rest of the tape was empty.

Paine punched the number in, and was put through immediately.

"Paine," Bryers said, "I'd like to see you now."

"Still hot with that job offer, Chief?"

Bryers waited a beat before answering. "A man named Roberto Hermano, who Bob Petty was working with, was found murdered. And Coleman has disappeared. I'd like to see you. Now, if you can, Paine."

"I can," Paine said.

P
aine didn't know Bryers well. He had been brought in to clean up the department only six months before and by all indications had done a good job. People were scared of him, which meant he was effective. And he had been Coleman's main worry, which was fine with Paine.

Bryers' office was spartan and neat; the clock on the wall outside said 3:05 and the air conditioner had been turned off. There was a residual breath of cool air that Paine relished as he sat down.

"I hear that you spoke with Roberto Hermano," Bryers said, directly. He looked like the kind of man who didn't waste time. He looked like his office. His tie was still knotted, his shirt white and unstained with perspiration, the sleeves buttoned at the cuff. His face was a bureaucrat's: oval, symmetrical, bland but potentially hard, the eyes unblinking, the hair thinning, parted, always combed. He'd look at home here or behind a lawyer's desk, or a vice president's desk at any corporation anywhere. He looked like the kind of man who would be good at implementing policy, or carrying out orders to the letter. Paine wasn't sure if he liked him or not.

"I talked with Hermano two days ago." Paine smiled slightly; it went unreturned. "Just a friendly talk."

"Coleman told you about him?"

"Well. . ."

"Coleman told you about him," Bryers stated, as if he were reading from prepared notes. "He also told you about Petty's drug investigation. Also, he made an unauthorized job offer
to you, with incentives attached that made the offer, in effect, a bribe."

"Can I guess?" Paine said. "You had Coleman's office bugged."

Bryers almost blinked. "I'd like to know what Roberto Hermano told you during your conversation."

"He told me Bob Petty was a good guy, and that now he thought he was fucked because Petty was gone, and the whole operation would be folded. I guess he was right."

Bryers nodded. "We found him in his apartment with his throat cut. His testicles had been stuffed into his mouth."

Bryers waited for a reaction that Paine didn't give, and then leaned slightly forward. "The thing is, Paine, I don't want you involved in this."

"Why not?"

"Because you're just going to get in my way. I was sent here to do a job. I've been here six months, and in another few months this police department will be clean."

"Bob Petty isn't a dirty cop."

"I wish I could believe that, Paine. But now I don't think so. We believe Coleman had Roberto Hermano killed. Coleman had been dealing with Hermano ever since Petty's drug sting was set up. When the sting was sprung we were going to bring Coleman down with the rest of them. Now it looks like Petty, too, was on the other side of the fence. I realize Petty is your friend, Paine, and I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

"I can't believe that."

Bryers leaned a fraction of an inch closer. "We did have Coleman's office bugged, Paine. And his phone tapped. Very legal, I've got the court orders.

"Petty made a call to Coleman two days ago, resigning from the force. He was very abusive and abrupt. There were a lot of expletives. It sounded like he was drunk, but I've listened to the tape and I can tell you there was no doubt he meant what he said.

"That was bad enough, walking out in the middle of an investigation and resigning the way he did. But he made
another phone call to Coleman, yesterday. After the call, Coleman left his office and disappeared. The desk sergeant saw him leave, and said Coleman was white as a sheet.

"We went over the tape, and we're sure it was Bob Petty's voice."

Bryers leaned back in his chair, pulled open a drawer in his desk, and pulled out a slim cassette recorder. He put it on the desk between himself and Paine.

"Like I said, I'm sorry he's your friend."

Bryers pushed the
play
button. The tape hissed and then a voice said, in a professionally hurried tone, "Coleman."

There was silence. Then Coleman began to say hello into the phone to see if anyone was there and was cut off.

It was Bobby Petty's voice. He wasn't drunk this time. "We're murderers, Joe," he said, as if presenting a death sentence.

Coleman began to say, "Bobby—" but Petty cut him off again.

"Tiny," Petty said, and then one end of the phone was cut off. But they heard air run out of a set of lungs on the other end, and then Coleman's voice, just before the phone was hung up, said, as frightened as a human voice gets, "Oh, God, Jesus."

T
his time, Terry looked
almost back to normal. There was a firmness around her mouth, a hard set that had never been there before, but otherwise she looked like nothing had happened.

"Hello, Jack," she said, as if Paine had come for a barbecue, or to help stain the redwood furniture with Bobby out back. He might almost have thought that Bobby would come out of the kitchen any moment, if not for the fact that much of Bobby's possessions, the same things Paine had meticulously gone through the day before, were heaped in the front hallway, some of them in open boxes filled to the top.

"What's all this?" Paine asked.

"Trash day is tomorrow," Terry answered matter- of-factly. "There's more of it out by the garage."

Paine noticed just how tight the set of her mouth was when she spoke.

Paine wandered down the hallway to the back bedroom. The two bottom drawers on the chest were out on the bed, empty
_;
the third of the closet where Bobby's shirts and shoes had been stored was cleared.

"Terry, what are you doing?"

She stood in the doorway with her arms folded. "Getting rid of it."

"Why?"

"Because he's not coming back."

"Terry—"

"He called me again, this morning, after the girls left for school. He wasn't drunk this time. He was very cool, not abusive at all. And he told me the same things." She looked Jack straight in the eye, unblinking. "Now I believe him."

"Terry—"

"Maybe you can come over next week and help with the garage and cellar. Take any of it you want. Take all the fishing equipment." Her matter-of-factness had begun to blend into anger. "Just get it out of here."

Once again Paine tried to speak, but her anger carried her through his words.

"You know what that
bastard
told me? He told me to give it all to you. It was like he was talking at his own funeral. 'Give it all to Jack,' he said. 'He likes to fish.' Like he was sitting across the breakfast table from me, talking about divorce."

"What else did he say?"

The matter-of-factness was gone now. "He was
calm,
for Christ's sake! He
knew
what he was saying. No one was making him talk, there wasn't any alcohol in him. When I asked him what it was, what was making him do it, a woman or what, he
laughed.
You
know what else he said?"

Paine looked at her face, the fury in her eyes.

"He said I should hook up with you. He said you always liked the way my butt looked in a bathing suit, so I might as well let you see it without the suit."

"Terry, why don't you calm down."

Paine was almost frightened by her anger, her hardness. "I'm fine, Jack. Because now I know what my world is again. Before he called this morning I didn't, but now I do. I don't want you to bother looking for him anymore. I'll pay what I owe you when I can."

"Terry, I'm not going to drop this."

"Yes, you will!"
she shouted. Paine thought she was going to hit him. "You will because I tell you to! I don't give a
damn
about the reason, that's not why I wanted you to find him. I wanted you to find him because I thought he needed me, that he was in trouble. But he's not in trouble, Jack. The bastard is not in trouble. He's gone."

"Terry, I won't drop it."

"Get out!"
This
time she did hit him, a balled-fist strike on his chest. "I don't want you involved in this! I don't want anybody involved! I'll take care of my family, I'll do whatever I have to!" She propelled him down the hallway toward the door with blows of her fist. "Get out, get out!"

The door was open, and then she slammed it behind him, and he heard her throwing things behind it, things from the boxes near the door, Bobby Petty's things, his shoes and socks and shirts, the buildup of a life ready for the garbage man.

They came at Paine from the alley next to his building. He heard them shuffle out quickly behind him, but he was too late to turn and they both hit him at once. He felt the hard meaty hit of a fist wrapped around metal over his right eye, and the tentative jab of another fist in his side. He almost went down, but they were stupid and waited to see if he would, and he recovered and went at the one with the metal in his fist, driving forward with his head lowered. He pushed the man back into the corner of the building and the air went out of the man with a whoosh.

The other tried to come at him then, but he feinted left and rose to the right and hit the man with an uppercut on the jaw. It was Koval, and Paine watched his eyes go fluttery and roll up into his head as he went down.

There was no one on the street, and Paine dragged Koval into the alley and then returned to pull Kohl in after him. Kohl was starting to breathe again so Paine hit him hard and fast, twice in the groin, and Kohl doubled in on himself and the air went out of him again. Koval wasn't moving. Paine made sure he was breathing, and then went over to Kohl and bent over and pushed his head back so he was looking into Paine's face.

"Are you really that stupid?" Paine asked.

Kohl said nothing
_;
his breath came in little hurt gasps and his hands were clenching and unclenching, trying to breathe
for his lungs. He wanted to roll into a fetal position but Paine held his head back, not letting him.

"Got any more of those little brass pipes?"

Kohl seemed to nod, so Paine went into the man's coat pocket and found two more lengths of fist-width tubing.

"A real Boy Scout, right?" Paine said. "Be prepared."

Kohl tried to roll into a ball again. "We were just trying to do what we were told."

"By Anapolos? Didn't I tell you I'd take care of Anapolos?" Kohl just looked at him.

"Christ, you guys are dumb. You just lost your six months free rent." Paine got up. He looked at Koval
;
some of the focus seemed to be coming back into his eyes. "Go back to Easton, and forget about me. If you bother me again, I'll have you arrested. If I don't break open your heads first and let your feeble brains drip out. Understand?"

Paine looked at each of them until they nodded assent. "Fine," Paine said, leaving the alley.