Woman Chased by Crows (44 page)

“Mr. Grova?”

“Louie's dead. Didn't you get the news?”

“Yes, your father,” Stacy said.

“Stepfather. My name's Kamen.”

“Oh, fine. Sorry. Mr. Kamen. Would it be all right if we talked to you for a few minutes? Just clearing up some things.”

Darryl left the door open and shuffled back to the counter. “He married my mother. That's the connection. That's the
only
fuckin' connection.” He slumped in his chair behind the glass-front case. On top were an empty paper coffee cup and a torn bag of ripple chips.

Stacy looked at the display; watches, cameras, pens, cigarette cases, rings, all of it dusty, jumbled. “So you were his stepson. But you've lived here quite a few years, haven't you?”

“So?” His eyes were on Adele, who was checking out the shelves up and down the narrow aisles, lifting things up and putting them down. “Listen, don't mess with that stuff, okay? It's all in the right order.”

“I can see that,” Adele said. She continued poking and shifting. “Power tools, electronics, very nice.”

“Gotta do a complete fucking inventory.”

“Tell me about it,” Adele said. “I'm doing the same thing myself.”

“Pain in the ass.”

“Got that right.” Adele moved out of sight.

“Thirsty work,” Stacy said. She picked up the empty coffee cup. “You deserve a drink, don't you think?”

“My girlfriend's trying to get me to cut back,” he said.

“Yeah, that's probably a good idea.” She put the brown paper
LCBO
sack on the countertop. “Your mother died eleven years ago? Is that right?”

“So?” His eyes were on the paper bag.

“So I'm wondering, if her marriage to Louie Grova was the only connection, why'd you stick around all these years?”

“Hey, I work here, I earn my keep. I drive the van, I pick up the furniture and tools and heavy shit and hump it in. I clean and repair and make sure things work. He didn't do shit except count his money. Sit behind here like a fat slug all day screwing people out of their nickels and dimes. Get a few bucks out of him like getting the last pickle out of the jar.”

“But it's all yours now. You're his only relative.”

“Sure it's mine. Can I open the store? No. Can I sell anything? No. Can I start unloading all this crap? No fucking way. Gotta wait for the courts and the cops and the tax man and everybody else who wants to fuck me over so they can come here and stick in their noses and count up how much they want.”

Adele's voice had an echo now, she was at the far end. “Should be a nice profit though, once the legal bullshit gets straightened out.”

“I'll try and live that long.”

“Y'know Mr. Kamen, it's possible we can speed up the process for you.” Stacy took a small bottle of rye and a can of ginger ale out of the paper bag. “Got any glasses?”

He waved at a shelf of crockery and crystal. “Take your pick.”

Stacy chose a glass then pulled a Kleenex from the box on the counter and wiped the rim. “This is probably a difficult time for you. We're not after you for anything.” He watched her unscrew the cap. She deliberately took her time. “We're just trying to figure out a few things that your father may have had knowledge of.” She poured a double and handed him the glass. “Ginger ale?”

He drank it straight down, one gulp, took a deep breath through his nose. “Next round,” he said.

She poured again. This time she added mixer. “And we've pretty much run out of people who were involved, or who knew any of the people who were.”

He snorted. “That's because they're all dead, right?” This time he drank more slowly, enjoying the taste and the glow.

“Many of them are, yes.”

“I'm not stupid. I stayed far the fuck away from those deals.”

“What deals?”

“Whatever illegal shit he had going.” He had another swallow, waved a hand. “He was into.”

“You lived with him for how long?”

“Altogether, I don't know, twenty years.”

“Twenty-two,” said Stacy.

“Whatever. Working my ass off. In the store, picking up consignments, organizing. Keeping books.”

“Seems to me in all that time you probably overheard a few things,” Stacy said, “maybe met some people, casually, people who dropped by to see your stepfather.”

“Yeah. Tell me to get lost. Wanted me out of the way for a while maybe, slip me a few bucks and say, ‘Go to the movies.' Cheap bastard.”

“Even so, smart guy like you, over twenty-two years you probably saw and heard a lot. Maybe some stuff you don't remember. Maybe some stuff you didn't one hundred percent understand.”

“Oh I fucking understood all right. I understood Louie was a sneaky piece of shit.”

“And you probably saw him with some people.” Stacy located the right image on her digital camera and handed it to him. “Like this man, Sergei Siziva.”

Darryl looked at the face. “Sir Gay Sissyboy. Sure. Showed up once in a while. Wouldn't sit down in case he got his fancy coat messed up. Usually with some fat prick to watch his back.”

“Oho! What
have
we here?” Adele sounded triumphant. She emerged from the darkness holding something by the tips of her thumb and finger. “Hey there Darryl, know what this is?”

“I haven't sorted that end yet.”

“That's good news,” Adele said. “Your fingerprints might not be all over it.”

“Is it . . . ?” Stacy started.

“Oh yeah. It's a Jordan spring clip holster.”

“I thought we already had his.” Stacy opened the top of the
LCBO
bag.

“Beats me. Got an initial on the back. ‘D.'” She dropped it in the bag. “Any idea where this came from, Darryl?”

“Christ, who knows? Louie the pack rat. Stuff in here from before Jesus.”

“Maybe it came from one of these guys.” Adele pulled out her brown envelope. It was getting ragged around the edges.

Darryl had a brief glance, pushed it away. “What about them?”

“You know either one of them?”

“Not especially.”

“Not ‘especially.' What does that mean, exactly?”

This time he helped himself to a drink. “Because this is like the
main
guy I stayed away from, know what I'm sayin'? Whenever he showed up, I made myself scarce.”

“Which one?”

“That big black fucker.”

Stacy folded the brown bag and put it in her pocket. “I guess they had private business to discuss,” she said.

Darryl leaned across the counter and drummed his finger on Dylan O'Grady's image. “You know this guy, right?” His tongue was already thick. “Used to be one of you guys. Carried a badge. His fucking passport to whatever the fuck he wanted to do. Wave it under my nose. Making jokes about people he'd ‘disappeared.' Not funny jokes. Got this loud voice. ‘Hey Darryl, how'd you like free room and board for about seven years at the Crown's expense? I can arrange it anytime you say. Heh heh heh,' and then he flips his coat open so I can see his gun again like I haven't seen it fifty times already. A real asshole.”

“Was he here a lot?”

“Couple times he wasn't around for a year, then he'd be showing up once a week, middle of the night, private meeting, here's ten bucks, fuck off. Two o'clock in the fucking morning. In fucking December. Where the fuck am I supposed to fuck off to?”

“Right. And where
did
you fuck off to?”

“Depends. Not too late I'd go next door. Have a few beers. Wait for him to leave.”

“If it was too late?”

“I'd let myself into the store. Stay down here.”

“Sure,” Adele said. “Have a look, Stace. In here. Doesn't look too bad.”

Stacy joined her at the open door. The back room had a saggy couch with a blanket thrown over the back. There was a coffee maker and a small refrigerator, two chairs and a table covered with magazines and comic books. The magazines featured huge-breasted women, the comic books had superheroes on the covers. “Looks comfortable,” Stacy said. “And listen to that. I can hear the
TV
upstairs.”

Darryl pushed his way between them and flopped on the couch. He didn't spill a drop. “My girlfriend. She's cleaning up, moving in. Probably.”

“That's nice,” said Stacy. She pulled up a chair and sat close to him. “So you'd be sitting down here, reading your magazines, drinking coffee, or beer maybe, waiting for the big man to leave.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So. So come on, Darryl. You can tell us.” She poked him teasingly. “Come on. You were listening, weren't you? You could hear what they were talking about.”

Adele pulled up the other chair. “I bet you could sure as shit hear what the big asshole was saying, couldn't you?”

He looked at the two women, from one face to the other. They were hemming him in, but they were also listening to him. “Think they're so fuckin' smart.”

“Who does?”

“All do. Louie and his secret meetings. Big frickin' deals.”

“So you were eavesdropping.”

“Don't give a fuck. Looking out for my interests. That black prick threatens me one more time he'll get a big fuckin' surprise.”

“Oh yeah? That's great. Because we'd like to surprise him too.”

“Like to surprise his ass into the gas chamber. Strap him to a fuckin' gurney and shove some serious shit up his arm.”

“We don't have the death penalty.”

“Yeah. That's a crying fucking shame. People like that. Prick bastard. Deserve to fucking die.”

“Why?”

“You wanna know what really makes me laugh? I just fuckin' crack up?”

“What's that, sir?”

“They send me outta the room like I'm some kid gets on their nerve. Ah, he doesn't know shit. Fuck off for a while, Darryl, let the big men do some business. Fuck 'em. Whatta they think I do? Disa-fucking-ppear?”

“Of course not. You come down here and listen in. What is it, an air vent or something? Lets the sound come down?”

“Better.”

“Better?”

“Oh, way better.”

“Come on Darryl, we're on your side here. If you can provide us with any ammunition . . .”

“Ammunition. Fuck. I've got a nuke-ular frickin' missile. I've got a weapon of fucking mass de-fucking-struction.”

Adele touched Stacy on the shoulder. Pointed to the cassette deck sitting on the shelf above the coffee machine. “Holy shit, Darryl. You've got them on tape.”

They went to Paul Delisle's apartment. They had six cassettes —
JVC
, Sony and 3
M
. None were dated. “He's got a cassette deck somewhere,” Adele said. “Maybe two. He always liked having a backup.” She stood in the middle of the living room looking lost. The place was still a jumble of half-packed boxes, half-read report files. “Plus there's coffee. We'll probably be up late.”

Stacy saw it. “Right up there. Top shelf. The silver thing. Can you reach it?”

“One thing I'm good for.”

It was a Sony unit,
CD
/cassette/
AM
-
FM
, with speakers. Stacy cleared a space on a side table and found a place to plug it in. “Hated doing that,” she said.

“Doing what? Taking his property? We gave him a receipt.”

“Enabling. Getting him drunk. Al-Anon would not approve.”

“Give me a break. You figure we blew his last chance at sobriety?”

“Not the point.”

“No. I get it. Too close to home, right?”

“They used to send my brother out to buy for them. Fake
ID
. He wasn't old enough.”

“Yeah. That sucks.”

“In the end he got just as messed up as they were.”

“It bother you when I have a drink?”

“Nope. It just scares the hell out of me that I might have a genetic predisposition to go down the same road. I'd like to avoid that if possible.”

“Well, give yourself a pass on this one, partner. Did it for the greater good. We nail Dylan O'Grady's ass to the wall, it'll wash away all sins.” She gave Stacy a rough one-arm hug and pushed her toward the kitchen. “Make coffee.”