The Martini Shot (20 page)

They stood as I entered. The office was crowded for three, and I imagined that was the way they wanted me: uncomfortable.

“Dennis Mahoney,” said the white one, late thirties, a little overweight but not soft, with strawberry blond hair that screamed Gaelic, a nose brilliantly veined from drink, and cheeks cratered with the laughing reminder of an acned adolescence. He wore a Men's Wearhouse–grade suit with pleated slacks and a rep tie darkened with an oval of grease.

“Detective Gittens,” said the black one. “Joe.” His suit was a little more twenty-first century than his partner's. He wore a thick mustache, had a face dotted with raised moles, and deep brown, tired eyes. He was on the green side of fifty and wore no wedding ring.

Gittens was the sensible one, Mahoney the meat-eater.

All of this I noticed before I spoke to them. An eye for detail is helpful in my profession.

“Victor Ohanion,” I said, and shook their hands.

“Ohanion,” said Mahoney, brightly. “You must be Irish. Me, too.”

“I'm Armenian,” I said.

Mahoney's smile faded. I might as well have said I was an
A
-rab or, worse, a Muslim. I was raised Orthodox Christian but hadn't seen the inside of a church since I was an altar boy. I'd been wandering the wilderness for more than twenty years.

“Have a seat,” I said, gesturing to the couch. They did, and I took the chair behind my desk.

Gittens wasted no time.

When I was a teenager, growing up in a multiethnic neighborhood just outside the city, my friends and I had an adversarial relationship with the law. Though all of us got high, none of us were into anything that had violence attached to it. Many of the guys I knew or ran with got busted at one time or another for marijuana possession, or low-level distribution, and paid a price. Some got put into the system and never recovered.

The cops in my hometown were devious about it. They hid in the woods, waiting for kids to light up. They arrested kids and turned them into snitches. The younger police on the drug squad posed as buyers and jacked kids up like that. The black and Hispanic kids suffered worse than the whites. They were pulled over more frequently in their cars, were handcuffed and sat down on the curb in the dead of winter, and were assigned disinterested public defenders when it came time to go to trial. They didn't have a chance.

Six months ago, I went back home to visit my mother. A curfew on teenagers had recently been enacted in that part of the county, and there had been some complaints that minority kids would be unfairly singled out. The chief of police wrote an editorial in the local newspaper defending the curfew, saying no particular race or ethnic group would be targeted, claiming that his young police officers were of an enlightened generation who didn't “see color.” When I read that, I laughed out loud.

Gittens was all right; maybe Mahoney was, too. But it didn't matter to me. I was nearly forty years old, a long way from my youth, and still, because of what I'd experienced growing up, I didn't trust police. I wasn't about to talk to them about my friend.

That night, I drove downriver to a part of town that was once a low-income, borderline dangerous district and was now a burgeoning neighborhood of newly arrived college graduates, folk resurgents, visual artists, and film production crew who were trying to make a living year-round.

Laura Flanagan lived in an old narrow-and-deep house with two young women who worked as prop and wardrobe assistants on other productions. I parked my rental on the street near one of the city's ubiquitous neighborhood markets and walked to her house. Skylar's electrics and rigging gaffers were grouped on the front lawn, and there were many people, some from our crew and some I didn't recognize, standing on Laura's porch and seated on her front stoop. They were drinking beer, wine, and liquor, playing guitar and percussion instruments, and passing around weed. Marijuana wasn't legal in this city, but its use was tolerated. The police had bigger issues to contend with here, like murder, rape, and internal corruption.

It was an impromptu wake of sorts and I moved into the crowd. I took a pull off a bottle of Jack that was offered to me, then grabbed a beer from a cooler. I could see that people were getting twisted in the go-to-hell way that is common after an unexpected death. We had a six a.m. call in the morning. It would be a rough day for those who were going hard at it.

I found Laura inside her house, a typical artist's lair, illuminated by candles and Christmas lights. Fish netting had been strung from the ceiling, and magazine photos were taped to the walls. Marijuana and cigarette smoke hung heavy in the room, where Laura sat on her couch, talking to friends. She was wearing her aviators, a loose flannel shirt, skinny jeans, and checkerboard Vans.

Laura stood as I approached. She came into my arms unsteady and we embraced. I held her tightly and for a long while. Her tears were hot on my face as she pressed her cheek against mine.

“It's gonna be okay, Laura.”

“You think so, Vic?” Her tone was odd.

“Sit with your friends. I'll talk to you in a little bit, when the crowd thins out.”

She went back to the couch. Out in the front yard I joined up with Skylar's crew, who were standing around, quietly getting wasted. They were telling stories and sharing memories about their beloved boss. The talk went from Skylar to counterpunches and defensive stances, firearms they'd recently purchased at shows, and back to Skylar. They were gun enthusiasts to a man, and Skylar, a martial artist, had gotten them into a regular training regimen at a local dojo. Though they weren't the show-muscle type, and none had flat stomachs, all of them were work-strong and knew how to go with their hands. They'd be hard to hurt. I pitied anyone who looked at them the wrong way tonight.

After midnight, Laura and I sat down on the edge of her bed and talked. Her twin mattress lay on the floor, separated from a roommate's bed by a curtain strung across the room. It wasn't the ideal spot to converse, but it was the only place in the house where we could find some privacy. I wanted to get to her before she got too sloppy, and it didn't seem that any of the visitors would be leaving anytime soon.

“The detectives spoke to you today?” I said.

“Yes. They asked me if I knew anything about Skylar's marijuana operation. That's what they called it: an operation.”

“They found his stash in his hotel room. His scale and the ledger book, too. They're going to match the crew list names with the initials in the ledger.”

“Why?”

“They're going to talk to people on the crew who you and Skylar were selling weed to. They're trying to determine if Skylar's murder was a random robbery or if it had something to do with his side business.”