Dead Bang (39 page)

“It's not fair to you for me to guess,” I said.

The telephone rang. Marg said it was for me. I picked up the telephone in my office and heard Manny ask, “Do you know where the money is?”

“Manny,” I said. “You need some new material. This shit's getting old.”

Someone took the line from Manny. A male voice said, “I am Shamil Khan. I have the traitor you call Manny. If you do not give me the money, I will kill him.”

“Do the comedy business a favor and whack him out.” I banged down the phone.

The telephone rang again. I picked it up.

“This is Shamil Khan.”

“Damn,” I said. “I was hoping for a telemarketer.”

“Do you want to hear this man die?”

“Okay,” I said. “But get on with it. I got shit to do.”

“This traitor informed to you about your woman.”

“No, he didn't,” I said. “I don't owe him shit. If you kill him, it'll save me the trouble. I'm keeping the money.”

I hung up and dialed Matty Svenson on my cell phone. Matty picked up at the same time that my telephone rang. I left it for Marg and asked Matty, “You looking for Shamil Khan?” I shuffled Matty's card, listing the arranged meeting location, out of my wallet. “I think he's in town.”

“It's for you,” said Marg. “The guy sounds frantic.”

I laid the cell phone on the desk with the line open and picked up my office phone. Manny said, “Thank you for being honest with my comrade. We have discussed this matter. If you will give us half the money, we will not trouble you further.”

“That's a shame,” I said. “I was looking forward to plugging you both.”

“That is not a productive thing to say,” said Manny.

“No conflict, no drama,” I said. “No drama, no comedy. Isn't that what you told me?”

“This is not comedy.”

“Cascade Wing Shooter's rod and gun club, six o'clock,” I said. “Six-o-one, I'm gone.”

“This is too late,” said Manny.

“I have a business to run, and I have to go get the money.”

“This is too public.”

“And they'll all have shotguns. Isn't that sweet? How funny is Nine-Eleven now?”

“Where is this place?”

“It's in the phone book. Look it up.”

Shamil took the line. “We will meet in the parking lot of your office in half an hour.”

“The money is two hours away. Meet me where and when I told you, or the meeting is off.”

“We will meet you in the parking lot of this rod and gun club,” said Shamil.

“I'll be on the firing line busting birds. Don't wear a big checkered hanky, and you may want to avoid any loud chitchat about jihad.” I slammed down the handset and picked up my cell phone. “It's on,” I said. “And they're in town. They wanted to meet in half an hour.”

“Who?” asked Matty.

“At least Shamil Khan and Manny,” I said. “But he wouldn't have agreed to the meet at Wing Shooter's if he didn't have some backup.”

“I want you to stay out of sight until this is over.”

“I have to meet Archer Flynt from the state police,” I said and looked at my watch, “in twenty-five minutes. Two o'clock, I have a powwow with a potential client.”

“If they're in town, they could be watching you.”

“If I lay low, they'll know it's a setup. I told them the money was two hours away. They aren't going to bother me until they think I have the money.”

“Where are you meeting Archer Flynt?” asked Matty.

“Beltline Bar.”

“What are you driving?”

“My Buick.”

“I'm going to put a GPS tag on your car,” said Matty.

“You mean I don't have one already?”

Matty hung up. I rescued my Detonics from the evidence bag, oiled the rails, loaded it, and slid it on my left hip with a big brown rubber band around the grip to keep the pistol from sliding down my pants. The two spare magazines went into my left-hand front pocket.

I walked back out into the front office and Marg asked, “What was that about?”

“I have to meet Archer Flynt in a few minutes. It's about Lily's case.”

“I rescheduled my flight,” said Lily. “And I left”—her voice broke—“a message on my brother's answering machine. Marg and I are going to wait for him to call.”

“He's working days,” I said. “You probably have time to get some lunch. I need to have the picture of your father for my meeting with the state police. I'll find out why your father changed his name.”

Lily's hand shook as she handed me the photo. Then, she launched from the sofa and hung herself around my neck again.

• • •

I got to the Beltline Bar stylishly late. Archer Flynt already had a table and a scowl when I walked in the door. He'd forgone his usual dime-store polyester suit for a charcoal sports coat and a night-watch plaid tie. He wasn't as happy about the photo as Lily had been. I didn't get a hug.

“What's with the Tijuana taxi you were driving in Detroit?”

“Midlife crisis,” I said. “You were following me?”

“Staked out Jack Jr. to see if you'd show up. What did you tell him?”

“I told him he had a sister.”

“That's it?”

I nodded and took back the picture.

“What about Lily Vincenti?”

“I told her she had a brother and that her father was a cop, not some asshole racketeer.”

“Nothing else?”

“I could guess the rest,” I said. “But I don't get paid for guesses.”

“Can you leave it there?”

The waitress walked up to the table and dropped menus in front of us. Flynt said, “We'll have another party when the Rotary Club lets out.”

“Coffee and a glass of water,” I said.

Flynt said, “Make mine decaf.” The waitress swished off, trailing the scent of some floral perfume.

“I left it on the street thirty years ago,” I said. “I dropped the photos on the Hamtramck Police and walked away.”

“Do you have the negatives?”

“Uncle Sam had them,” I said. “They were in my surveillance file. Probably shredded years ago.”

The waitress brought out drinks and another place setting.

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Black,” we said in unison. She left.

“There's one thing that bothers me,” I said.

“Learn to live with it,” said Flynt. “And put that picture in your pocket.”

Ryan Kope—City of Wyoming chief of police and law-enforcement troll under my gruff-billy-goat-PI bridge—walked in wearing a blue pinstriped suit that cost more than my son's college books for the past two semesters put together. He pulled up a chair. “What's this about?” he asked.

“Lunch,” I said. “Remember, you invited me. I'm going to get the Belt-line Bar's world famous wet burrito.”

“They invented it here thirty years ago,” said Kope. “Elegant, tasty, and if you come to Wyoming and fail to have one, you need to schedule another trip.”

“Speaking of thirty-year-old bullshit,” said Flynt, “I want the rest of the pictures.”

Kope shot me a glance and then asked Flynt, “What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about your cousin, Helen Kopinski,” said Flynt. “Kope, Kopinski—it wasn't rocket science.”

I sipped my coffee and found it much too hot.

“We already talked about that,” said Kope.

“And you lied to me,” said Flynt, the mercury rising to his cheeks. “When your cousin died, you found the pictures when you went through her personal papers.”

“There's no statute of limitations on murder,” said Kope. “We can access information to clear cases that have festered for years. I'm a police officer. I was doing my job.”

“Maybe, up until you found out Hardin's prints were on the photo. After that, I think it got personal.”

“Not at all,” said Kope, his face as smug as a cat burping bird feathers.

“That when you deputized Mark Behler?” asked Flynt.

“Sometimes you have to enlist the help of the media for tough cases,” said Kope.

“This is a thirty-year-old Mob rubout that was dealt down for witness cooperation,” said Flynt.

“I'd like to see that paperwork,” said Kope. “And if Hardin had anything to do with it, he shouldn't have a dick license.”

“You're going to see an indictment for malfeasance in office,” said Flynt.

“You'll never make that stick,” said Kope.

I spooned some ice from my water glass into my coffee.

“All I have to do is make the charge,” said Flynt. “By the time it doesn't stick, the election will be over.”

“You two make a good pair,” said Kope. “What's Hardin got on you?”

“Hardin's never lied to me,” said Flynt. “When he took those pictures, he was acting in an official capacity. You wouldn't have found them if he hadn't acted in good faith.”

“Maybe I'll run for governor,” said Kope, jostling the table as he got to his feet. “Then I'll be your boss.”

“Don't put the attorney general's staff on your mailing list,” said Flynt. “It'll remind them that you were on the short list of things to do.” He shook a finger. “You tell Mark Behler I want a statement.”

“I don't know where he's at,” said Kope. “You want to talk to him, you find him.”

“I get the rest of the pictures by Friday, or Monday I serve the papers when I come to search your office,” said Flynt.

Kope stormed out of the restaurant, knocking empty chairs aside as he went.

“They traded down a police homicide?” I asked.

“Vincent hadn't been a cop for years. He was a paid federal informant,” said Flynt.

“Why the name change?” I asked.

Flynt gave me the large eyes and blank face that translates,
Nobody's that stupid!

“J. Vincent, J. Vincenti,” I said, “Close together enough to cash the checks and far enough apart to be a cover identity.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Flynt, studying the swirl he made stirring his coffee.

“Here's another guess,” I said. “Jack Vincent stayed under too long. His reports got shorter, then spotty and sympathetic to the people he was investigating, then nonexistent. He joined the other side. He became Jack the Lookout and even married a woman as John Vincenti. He didn't get religion until he got arrested, and his mug shot turned up on the front page of the newspaper.”

Flynt looked up from his coffee and said, “I'm having the wet burrito.”

“Y
ES,
I'
M SURE IT WAS
M
ARK
B
EHLER
,”
said Leonard Stanton. “He was standing by my desk and ran when he saw me. When I got to the desk, I found the drawer smashed open and the gun missing.”

“Sounds like a police matter to me,” I said and parked my backside on some canvas bags stacked next to Leonard's temporary security desk.

Leonard rocked back his chair and stacked his brogans on the corner of his desk. “Behler has a five-year contract.”

“Contracts aside, we're talking a public-safety issue.”

“The gun was a paperweight, an old Ivor Johnson top-break .38. The cylinder was out of time, and the firing pin hits the edge of the casing instead of the primer. I never let the guards carry it.”

“What the hell is up with Behler?”

“It's been all over the news,” said Leonard. “Where have you been?”

“Detroit,” I said. “I heard that he'd been turned down for a purchase permit and later that he was missing. I didn't get anything in between.”

“Behler had a felony conviction,” said Leonard. “When he was in college, he gave his roommate a tab of LSD. The kid took a swan dive out of a third-floor window and died of cement poisoning.”

“How's that rack up a felony conviction?”

“Back then, even marijuana possession was a felony. Behler had enough LSD to levitate the entire campus. They charged him with possession for distribution but let him plead to delivery. He did weekend jail for a year.”

“He had to know he couldn't get a permit,” I said.

“Behler was his mother's maiden name. When his probation was up, he had his name legally changed.”

“After all this time, he could have had his rights reconstructed,” I said.

Leonard shrugged and showed me his palms. “Who knows, maybe he thought he would get the permit and have a big exposé.”

I walked over to the soda machine across from Leonard's desk and rattled the change in my pocket. “You want a soda?”

“Mr. Pibb,” said Leonard.

“When did you start drinking that?” I asked.

“When all the other flavors ran out.”

Leonard popped the tab on his drink and said, “The story came out in the
Grand Rapids Press.
They put it on the back page, next to the retractions—professional favor, maybe—but somebody read it and called in on the open-line segment of Behler's show. Behler melted down on the air and launched into a list of his good works and how, as a journalist, he worked for the community. He kept going for a half hour after the show was over. Chet Harkness had to turn off the lights to shut him up.”

I snapped open my drink. “After that he disappeared?”

“Called in sick the next day. Morning after that, he came up here around eight o'clock and asked me to get him something out of his office. I told him he could get it himself, but he looked like he hadn't slept—or bathed or shaved for that matter—so I went and got it for him. When I came back, it's like I told you.”

“He didn't go home?”

“His wife keeps calling here looking for him,” said Leonard.

“No idea where he's at?”

Leonard took a slug of his soda. “I'd find him myself, but management wants me to stay here because of the bomb at the studio. All they want you to do is find him, get the gun, and tell him they want him back.”