Split Images (1981) (29 page)

On his way north in the Mercedes Walter had stopped off in Deltona, Florida, to visit the sister he hadn't seen in about five years. He sat down as long as he could, talking about Irene and how much she liked West Palm, before asking his sister if he could stay at her house a few days, while he wound upsome business in Detroit. His sister kept asking him questions. Wasn't he working for this Mr. Daniels?

Living--I mean to tell you--in Grosse Pointe? No, he was quitting, getting into something else-'

Christ, having to explain everything until he thought he was going to have to take the goddamn house key off her. His sister would call Irene, there was nothing he could do about that; but he'd be out of her house in about a week. Once he contacted Robbie and made the deal. He had dropped off the Mercedes the first day. Robbie wasn't back yet. Or his wife. The maid didn't seem to know anything about them.

Walter would wake up hungover, the top of his spine like a spike sticking up through his head, still half-drunk, jumpy and in pain, with urges to look in the empty rooms. He'd have a couple of cold ones to settle him, fry some eggs and sausage, then spend about an hour in the can with the door locked, even though he was alone in the house.

Mornings he had to keep moving, walk through the dark rooms with the shades drawn, figuring out where he stood and what he was going to do with the video cassette that showed the death of Chichi Fuentes--and a little more. So far he had hidden it in three different places. It was in a good place now, protected.

Coming here, staying here, was to settle him down. Look out a window and see a street thatcould have been back in '57, '58, or before that.

The row of straight-up-and-down two-family houses with their imitation brick facings, grillwork guarding the porches and postage-stamp front lawns. They belonged to people who were proud to live in Hamtramck with a church around the corner, football games at Keyworth Stadium, "Home of the Cosmos," and doing a job at Dodge Main along with about eighteen thousand hourly working three shifts when you couldn't buy a better car for your money and the fucking Japs were still making birthday-party novelties and toys that fell apart. No more. People were moving to Warren and out to Sterling Heights. Well, you could still drink Kessler's for four bits and could listen to Johnny Shadrack's Polish-American Matinee, WMZK, and still hear in this hotshit new age "The Beer Barrel Polka" once in a while. But that was about it.

At least he felt safer in the bar than at his sister's house, in there in the dark waiting for the phone or the doorbell to ring. Darker than in here even. He felt pleasantly numb after the painful morning.

He felt like everything was going to work out.

He felt like talking.

He felt he knew the guy coming in now. And when he found out he was right he didn't know what to feel.

It was Bryan Hurd. Bryan took the stool next to him and placed a flattened pack of Camels on the bar. He said, "You left these, Walter, in Florida."

"How'd you find me?"

"I'm a policeman," Bryan said. "You used to be a policeman. You remember that?"

Walter had too many words in his mind at once and it was hard to pick the right ones. He tried, "I read about it, I want to tell you I was shocked, I couldn't fucking believe it." He tried, "Jesus, you never know, do you? You get mixed up with--you get like involved with these people you're writing an article about, I guess it can happen, being at the wrong place, you know, at the wrong time. It's a shame, an innocent person. But you got a job, what can you do? You can't sit home. Right?"

Walter stopped. The way Bryan was looking at him all he could see were Bryan's eyes, the eyes not saying anything, except every time he looked away and looked back there were the fucking eyes, the eyes fixed on him. He wanted to get it over with. If Bryan was going to say something he should say it.

Walter thought of something else. "You want a drink? Art, fix us up here. Kessler and whatever the lieutenant wants." He said to Bryan, "Fucking Kessler's still four bits. You believe it?" It gave him an opening. "The only thing in this town hasn't changed. I used to live over by Geimer, when I was growing up? The house's gone. Hamtramck HighSchool, where I went? Gone. Not a trace of it.

Dodge Main? Fucking gone. There's a couple brick walls standing there I think was the boiler room, it's got so much steel in it they can't fucking knock it down. Kowalski's still there. St. Florian's still there. St. Florian's, you'd have to shoot the priests and blow it up. But Immaculate Conception? It's not in Hamtramck but it's close enough, right there. GM's tearing it down. Sure, taking all that land there and where Dodge Main was for a new assembly plant. Cadillacs in Hamtramck, for Christ sake. Everything's changed. I mean everything. Go over look at the juke box. They got on there The Mutants, the Walkie-Talkies, Adam and the fucking Ants. What else? The Fishsticks. The Plastics. The In fec tions, for Christ sake. What's going on? Look--picture of the broad over there on the wall?" He pointed to a poster shot of David Bowie. "You know who she is? They got Iggy Pop, all this shit, they got one Frank Sinatra on there, on the juke box."

Walter thought as fast as he could to come up with something else, to fill the silence beginning to settle.

Bryan said, "Walter, I want the gun Robbie used.

I don't want a stroll down memory lane. I want the High Standard twenty-two and I want the suppressor that goes with it."

Walter looked away and back again, knowing hehad time and knowing what he wanted to say, the one word, the key word, gun, giving it to him.

He said, "Bryan, I don't know if you're a Catholic, but how about the pope, uh? You believe it, somebody would shoot the fucking pope? John Paul the Second, best pope we ever had. Yeah, hey, his cousin use to live right over here on Mt. Elliott.

You know that? You knew he was Polish, right?

Educated--shit, he can speak seven languages, goes all over the world, seen by millions of the faithful and where is he? He's home, he's in St. Peter's Square, this Turk pulls out a Browning starts popping away. Fucking Turk." Walter stopped, a dramatic pause.

"Bryan, it was a Browning nine-millimeter, the exact same fucking gun I've been packing the last, what, three, four years. And you know what I'm gonna do with the gun, Bryan? I mean my gun. I'm gonna drive over on the Belle Isle Bridge, I'm gonna get out of the car and I'm gonna throw the fucking gun in the fucking Detroit River. I'm gonna tell you something I haven't told nobody at all. You think I'm in the fucking bag and I'm drunk, but I promise you that's what I'm gonna do. Throw the gun away and never pack again as long I fucking live and that's a promise."

Bryan said, "I want that High Standard, Walter, and whatever barrels go with it. I want you tell me where it is."It didn't sound right to Walter. He said, "The twenty-two? He didn't use the twenty-two."

He saw Bryan's eyes fixed on him again and tried to remember--shit--what he had just said. He said, "Wait a minute . . ."

But it was too late. Bryan said, "You want to talk about Florida, Walter? You want to get into that?"

Bryan unbuttoned his sport coat and held it open with both hands. "You notice anything different, out of the ordinary?"

Walter shook his head. "What?"

"I don't have a gun on me," Bryan said. "You know why? I was afraid I saw you the first thing I'd do, I'd stick it against your head, Walter, and pull the trigger. I thought about it a long time and then I put it out of my mind and stopped thinking about it. You understand? I'm not talking about Florida, I'm talking about Detroit. Curtis Moore. I'm not gonna give him to anybody in Florida. I want him here . . . You listening to me?"

"Yeah," Walter said, "Curtis Moore. Was shot with a High Standard twenty-two. Got a big fucking suppressor on it."

"That's the one," Bryan said. "Listen to me."

"I'm listening."

"Robbie's due back sometime tonight."

"How do you know?"

"Just listen. Sober up. Go in there and find the gun before he gets back. Don't touch it, leave it. Then call me and tell me where it is. When I go in I'll have a warrant, but I want to know where to look."

"You getting me into this?"

"If you're in it, you're in it."

"I didn't know he was gonna do Curtis. Honest to God, he never said a fucking word. He just pulls this cool shit and does it."

"He told you about it after?"

"Like that night."

"But you didn't tell anybody."

"Somebody was gonna do Curtis sooner or later,"

Walter said. "What's the difference? Go down the morgue, see all the fucking Curtises they got there."

"Walter? Call me at 1300 soon as you know where the gun is. I'll talk to you later about a statement."

"What statement?"

"Whatever he told you. Write it down and sign it."

"Not without immunity."

"I'll see what the prosecutor says."

"What about the other deal?"

"Walter," Bryan said, "if you're talking about Florida I'm gonna give you one more chance to keep your mouth shut. Don't mention it again, okay? Don't say one fucking word."

Walter got as far as saying, "I think you're imagining things that happened--"

Bryan hit him, spinning him off the stool. Bryanstood over Walter and said, "I saw it. I don't have to imagine anything, I saw it."

Art had to come around to help Walter, straining to get him on his knees and his arms over the side of the pool table--like a sack of cement--so he could pull himself up. Then had to help him away from there so he wouldn't be sick on the table. Walter looked awful, staring out bleary-eyed.

"Where'd he go?"

"Your friend?" Art said. "He left. What'd he hit you for?"

"It's okay," Walter said. "He's pissed off about something."

Malik and Doug Parrish were waiting in front of the General Motors Building, watching the pickets who were trying to convince everyone that GM had no heart and that GM was taking their homes. New signs today read:

DON'T TAKE OUR CHURCH!

PLEASE!

Parrish said, "Wait a minute. If the archdiocese thinks it's a good idea, they sell the land the church's on to the city and the city sells it to GM, what're they bitching at GM for?"Malik said, "You asking me? Ask the cardinal.

These people're parading around trying to save their church hardly any of 'em go to, he's out at Gucci's, some shoe store, blessing the grand opening. They open up a new Thom McAn he sends an altar boy."

Parrish said, "You got that from the Free Press, the guy on the back page. I read it."

Malik said, "So? He got it from somebody else.

What's the difference?" He nodded toward the blue Plymouth pulling in behind the blue Plymouth already in the no standing zone. Then watched Bryan closely, the way he moved as he came past the pickets to join them.

"What's the matter with your hand?"

"I'm trying to keep from killing people," Bryan said, "and I'm having a hard time."

Malik and Parrish looked at each other. As they walked into the building Parrish said, "How do you want to handle this?"

"I want a statement," Bryan said, "I hope without hanging the guy out the window. Stare at him and crack your knuckles, I don't know . . ."

It was past five and they were moving against a rush of people coming out. On the second floor, down the glass hallways, nearly all the offices were empty, desk tops cleared. Bill Fay's secretary had gone. He looked out from his desk with a weary grin, extending his hand as he got up, shaking his head, and Bryan knew he was rehearsed, ready. Not that it mattered. There would be no handshaking or introductions.

Malik and Parrish came up to the desk one either side of him as he said, "I'm gonna have to have a statement from you, Mr. Fay."

Bill Fay smiled and frowned, made several faces as he thought it over and finally said, "I'm prepared to say, from now on, I don't know what in the hell you're talking about."

Bryan picked up the phone and began dialing a number, paused after three digits, looked up and said, "Eight-five-one, seven-one-three-one?"

Fay said nothing, holding on.

Bryan finished dialing. He held the phone out so Fay could hear the rings.

"All right, put it down."

"You'll give me a statement? Everything you saw?"

The phone continued to ring. A woman's voice came on, a pleasant tone. "Hello?"

"Yes!" A half-whispered hiss. "Put it down!"

Bryan said into the phone. "I may call you back in a minute," and hung up. He watched Fay sink into his chair and begin to swivel slowly from side to side.

"You seem to be experienced in ruining marriages," Fay said. "What's the least destructive way to do this?"

"I want a signed statement," Bryan said, "a pos-itive identification of Robinson Daniels, what you saw him doing, the fact you saw him go down to the garage."

"I didn't actually see him go down."

"Tell what you did see."

"This is under duress, you realize."