Sleep Don't Come Easy (21 page)
Read Sleep Don't Come Easy Online
Authors: Victor McGlothin
Bullet lit two candles on Vera's wash basin then killed the lights. She watched with bated breath as he stripped down to nothing and then climbed into the bathtub behind her. “Ooh, hold on,” she moaned. “Let me drain a little water and make it hotter for you.”
“Uh-uh, ain't no need for that,” Bullet growled in her ear. “It's plenty hot for me as it is.”
She cut her eyes at him over her shoulder. “We got all night, unless you've got some other place to be?” Even if he did have other plans after she was finished with him, he'd better not acknowledge it.
“No, it don't get no better than right here.” His answer came in a quick and easy manner that sounded so nice it had to be the truth. “I have been wondering when you'd get around to telling me what's causing that hitch in your voice.”
“You think you know me?”
“Well?” Bullet said, as he sucked on the back of her neck.
“Quit that now.” She squirmed. “Keep on and I won't be able to speak at all.”
“Okay, two minutes, then I'm on to why I came.”
Vera leaned back against Bullet's chest, her favorite place on the planet, and nestled her head against his neck. “You ever think about doing something that could get you killed?”
“Huh, you forget I made a living with my fists. I risked my life every time I climbed into the ring.”
“Yeah, but you loved doing it. Maybe I'm just constipated.”
“Right now?” Bullet asked, not sure what, if anything, to do about it. “I guess I could run down to the drugstore for you.”
Vera laughed at him. “Not like that, silly. I mean in a rut sort of way. My business, I like it, but the hustle of making the ends meet makes me think sometimes.”
Bullet stroked Vera's shoulder with his big hands in a compassionate manner that made her want to stay in that position forever. “What would you rather be doing?”
“Pretty much the same thing I'm doing now, only for more money,” she told him honestly.
“Yep, I always said there wasn't any point in having your cake if you can't eat it too.” Bullet went back to running his tongue up and down Vera's neck. “Your two minutes is up and I want some cake.”
She squirmed again like before, moaning at the thought of it. “You . . . are . . . so . . . nasty.”
“Just the way you like it.”
“Uhhh-huh.”
Twelve
T
he morning after Vera showed her man just how nasty she liked it, the sun shone through the blinds in her bedroom. An empty Chardonnay bottle on her nightstand and a head full of outstretched hair were the telltale signs that she got exactly what she neededâsmooth wine and strong loving. She rolled out of bed, glowing with visions of what had transpired during the night swimming around in her mind. A hint of a grin played at the corner of her lips when Bullet pleaded for her to come back for another round.
he morning after Vera showed her man just how nasty she liked it, the sun shone through the blinds in her bedroom. An empty Chardonnay bottle on her nightstand and a head full of outstretched hair were the telltale signs that she got exactly what she neededâsmooth wine and strong loving. She rolled out of bed, glowing with visions of what had transpired during the night swimming around in her mind. A hint of a grin played at the corner of her lips when Bullet pleaded for her to come back for another round.
“Uh-uh, I've got to get going this morning,” she protested half-heartedly. “Besides you put enough work in for two nights.”
“You know I love cake,” Bullet said, licking his lips.
“So nasty,” she whispered, while sliding beneath the sheets with him. “Okay, five minutes, but afterwards I've got to go.”
Forty-five minutes later, Vera was making a second attempt at meeting the day, although her determination was quite a bit weaker than before. She stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the shower. “I like that man,” she heard herself say, as streams of water cascaded down her breasts. “Y'all like him too, huh, girls? Yeah, he's my kinda freak.” She couldn't help but envision a lifetime of late morning showers and good morning sex. Bullet liked her, that much was plain. How much she actually meant to him wasn't. Until it had the chance to show itself, what he had been willing to give her was exceedingly appreciated.
Vera left a note on the pillow next to Bullet as he slept, telling him that she enjoyed his company and his overwhelming fondness for cake. She wanted to close the note with an “I Love You” but thought better of it. Admitting those words might have set something into play she wasn't ready to deal with head-on, so she sidestepped it by writing “Love, Vera” at the end. After planting a gentle kiss on the crown of his bald head and feeling his warmth radiate throughout her soul, she tip-toed out the door and into the world that didn't bother with such pleasantries. Out there, she felt alone.
Elmer Williams, the Dallas County medical examiner, was singing a Billie Holiday tune, “Don't Explain,” when Vera appeared in the basement of Parkland Hospital. He was in his late sixties and just as spry as ever. The graying goatee he wore was a nice accent to his soft brown skin. “Ahh, there she is,” he sang with a smile bigger than Texas. “Come over here and trip the light fantastic with me.” Vera giggled at him, then turned up her nose. She eyed his medical scrubs and latex gloved hands.
“No way I'm letting you touch me with those on. Ain't no telling where they've been this morning.”
“See, now there you go. I haven't opened this one up yet,” he informed her, regarding his next patient. A whale of a black man, seemingly in his late thirties, was lying flat on the metal slab with a white sheet draped over his waist. “You know I can't help getting my tour around the floor when you show up. Other women come to see me, too, but none of them have what you got, a perfect step. On top of that, you let me lead.” Wearing the same non-committal frown, Vera pointed at his gloves. “Oh, all right,” Elmer fussed. “Put your dancing shoes on.” He snapped the latex from his mitts, then tossed them on his desk in the corner of the vast room.
Vera grinned at the older distinguished man and assumed a ballroom dancer's position with her arms held out mannequin-style. “Watch your hands, Elmer,” she spat. “The last time I left here wearing your fingerprints on my tail.”
“Sorry fo' that, must've slipped,” he explained, and not too convincingly.
They danced around the room among stiffs stretched out beneath full drapes. The bodies didn't upset Vera, all of the bad deeds they were ever going to do had already been done. She was there to get closer to Rags's past and his potential fate. There was a good chance the medical examiner could help her with that, but first she had to pay the piper. Elmer was a pretty fine dancer, she thought. That's when she noticed he was humming another bluesy hit and guiding her around the cement floor with his hand on her behind. She stopped abruptly when it came to her that he'd become more excited than she could bear dealing with. “You said you'd watch your hands, Elmer,” Vera hissed, as she backed away.
“Must've slipped,” was his nervous response.
Vera pointed her finger at the bulge in his cotton scrubs. “And what about that?”
“Wait a minute now, I didn't have no control over that,” he argued. “I'm sorry but what can I say? Had a hot date last night and the Viagra hasn't worn off yet.”
“Elmer, you could have told me you were pill popping again. I'd have known better.”
“I should have known better too, Vera,” he apologized. “I don't want to let this little mishap to come between us.” When she smirked at his choice of words, Elmer realized how it sounded. “Well, you know what I meant. Friends?”
“I guess,” she pouted playfully. “Now put that thing away so I can ask about a case you might have worked a few years back.”
Elmer shrugged on a long white lab coat then crossed his arms. “Is this good enough?”
“It'll have to do, won't it? Maybe you ought to button up so
it
doesn't get loose,” she added to let him know that she didn't hold what happened against him. “Now, then, this may take some time to look up but I believe it was around December, twenty-four to twenty-six months ago. A white cop was killed, shot down while chasing the robbers of a roadside diner near my office. The paramedic that swooped him up from the crime scene says she brought him here. I need to know how many gunshot wounds he rolled in with?”
it
doesn't get loose,” she added to let him know that she didn't hold what happened against him. “Now, then, this may take some time to look up but I believe it was around December, twenty-four to twenty-six months ago. A white cop was killed, shot down while chasing the robbers of a roadside diner near my office. The paramedic that swooped him up from the crime scene says she brought him here. I need to know how many gunshot wounds he rolled in with?”
Elmer leaned his head back and stroked his goatee. When something came to mind, he nodded that he'd recalled it perfectly. “It was a cold and rainy night as I remember. I can't tell you any specifics about the autopsy though.”
“Why not? The body was delivered here, right?”
“Yes, they brought him in and he stayed out in the hall due to the high overflow that night. Every time it pours cats and dogs like that, our guest room gets flooded from automobile accidents alone. There must have been twenty bodies to pass through here by sunup.”
Vera stood back on her heels. She didn't know whether to be disappointed or shocked beyond belief. “You telling me that y'all misplaced a dead cop?”
“Call it what you want, but forensic medicine is not an exact science and neither is cataloging corpses. He didn't up and walk off. I'd say somebody took him. And, by the looks of the blood-soaked sheets that EMT brought him in with, he would have been a mess to clean up.”
“That's crazy, Elmer. I've got a client who thinks he killed somebody, maybe this cop and now there's no autopsy report to go on. I'd rather set his mind at ease and send him home with a clear conscience. Was there any remote chance the cop pulled through?”
“Sorry, Vera, not likely. If the wounds didn't kill him, he sure as hell bled out on the way over.”
Vera thought she had come up with evidence either to clear Rags or sink him altogether. Now she felt like a woman who caught a close-out deal on shoes two sizes too small. The price was right but the pain was unbearable. “Okay, okay. Tell me about the federal agents that came snooping around after the body disappeared.”
“What agents?” the examiner asked. “The policeman's wife, she showed up and pitched a holy fit about him being gone, then I didn't hear from her again. Actually, I expected to have my head handed to me on a platter by the police commissioner, too. I never heard a peep out of him either. It was the longest week of my life after I'd learned the dearly departed and misplaced was a city employee.”
“This is too weird, Elmer.”
“I always thought it was,” he agreed.
“I've interviewed the waitress at the diner who called in the shooting and the EMT driver first on the scene; both of them claimed the FBI was all over it. It didn't figure that they'd pull a no-show at the morgue, where the medical examiner's notes could make their case for the murderer. I don't get it,” she huffed finally. “I could have stayed in the bed for this.”
“Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.”
“Elmer, it's nothing against you. Thanks for the fox trot.”
The medical examiner watched Vera's backside sway until she caught the elevator going up. “You're welcome.”
The noonday sun shone brightly over the city area as Vera motored toward downtown. Still behind on her first meal of the day, she called Donald Beasley to arrange an impromptu lunch date. Before he answered the phone, Vera kept trying to make sense out of nonsense. There was a dead cop, whose body had been misplaced, ghost FBI agents and a gunman that no one pursued as far as she knew. Calling Rags with a stern suggestion to get out of town on the next thing smoking did occur to her, but that would merely ease her mind, not his. That's why Vera stayed on the job. Rags came to her in desperate need of help. She hadn't quit on a client yet, and he needed her more than any of the others had. As her grandfather used to say, Vera was determined to ride this bull until it bucked her.
“Hey, Donald, this is Vera. I'm rolling through your neck of the woods. You got time for a bite?”
“I wish I did,” he said, as if in the middle of something important. “I'll take a rain check, but listen, since I can't do a damned thing about Detective Sikes's investigation, I want you to have what I've come up with. There's a man you'll want to locate. Sinton Johnson was one of Sikes and Draper's street informants.”
“Sin Johnson's is a name I know. Draper, where have I heard that before?”
“Remember the guy you ran into when you came to see me? Yeah, that was Frank Draper, Sikes's partner. Vera, hear me now. People have been asking around about your involvement into Sikes's shooting, so watch your back.”
“You saying somebody inside the blue wall has got something to hide?”
“Sweetheart don't kid yourself, we all got something to hide,” he asserted jokingly. “It's just that some of us have a lot more than others.”
Vera examined what her friend said and what it meant to her investigation. Unless she wanted to become a target for dirty cops, things had better get wrapped up soon. “Thanks, Donald. Sinton Johnson used to be a big shot until he got too deep into his own junk.”
“And that's how Draper flipped him. Sinton's out there. Maybe he can shed some light on how things used to be, when Sikes was still breathing.”
Vera parked next to a taco vendor on Commerce Street, across from the records building. “Got any idea where can I find him?”
“Nope, but I do know somebody who would. Draper's in the station house today. He could get you farther on down the road. He did take his partner's shooting pretty hard.”
“You probably don't want to hear this, but Draper could be the reason his partner got blown away. If not, I can't let him know that I have a client who may have been in on it.” Vera thanked Detective Beasley, then ordered two burritos to go.
Sinton Johnson was a player Vera knew from a time when drugs swam through the black neighborhood unopposed by the law. Crack cocaine hit Dallas without notice or regard to the lives it ruined. It caught the police department off guard and unprepared to keep the drug trade in check. Dealers lived like government project aristocrats, admired like top-billed movie stars. Sin Johnson epitomized men who came into immense wealth overnight. He spent money as if he had a license to print it. Vera wondered how he was getting along nowadays with a crack problem of his own. Going to Frank Draper concerning Sinton's whereabouts wasn't an option until Vera knew the whole story.
While dashboard dining wasn't her typical idea of grabbing lunch, Vera nibbled on bean and beef burritos, and used the time to think. She had gone out of her way to learn what happened after Warren Sikes was killed. Detective Beasley was on to something. Maybe it was high time to start looking into what went down before he died.
Vera contacted Cecelia Montez and asked how her boyfriend was working out, then laughed when she explained how he'd been evicted at the end of her .45 caliber revolver. He came home with another woman's panties stuffed in his back pocket. That wasn't enough to infuriate Cecilia, but learning that he was cheating with a size-six eighteen-year-old was a deal breaker. Vera had to catch her breath when her friend's tongue started spewing Spanish and broken English at the same time.
“Okay, chica, I get it,” Vera chuckled. “He ain't coming back. Sorry I asked.”
“Whatever, his cousin Ramón is way finer anyway. And from what I hear, he's packing, too,” Cecilia snickered. “We're going out tonight after work.”
Vera had a distinct feeling Cecilia already knew about Ramón's endowment first hand although she wasn't interested in calling her on it. “Go on then, keep it in the family.”
“If you ever get tired of that big chocolate Bullet of yours, Ramón's got lots of brothers. I could hook you up, too.”
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