Dead Red (29 page)

Jack put his hand on my shoulder. “Me, too, Ray. What’d you find out?”

I was about to tell him when my phone rang.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Ray, it’s Robby.”

“You with your mom?”

“No, I’m at my aunt’s. They’re still at the precinct. You got some time maybe?”

“Why?”

“I got something I need to show you.”

“Can’t you just tell me?”

He paused for a few seconds. “I don’t wanna talk about it over the phone. Can you come to my aunt’s house?”

“What’s the address?” After he gave it to me, I said, “I’m bringing Jack Knight with me, okay?”

Jack gave me a look as Robby said, “Yeah, fine. He can be trusted, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks, Ray.”

After I put the phone away, I headed off in the direction of Jack’s car.

“What was that about?” he said as he caught up with me.

“That was Robby. He wants us to meet him at his aunt’s house.”

“What the fuck for?”

“He didn’t say, but he sounded a bit shaken up.”

“So do you, Ray. What the hell happened inside that house?”

I got to the car and opened the passenger-side door. “We’ll talk on the way.”

Chapter 24

JACK PUNCHED THE ADDRESS ROBBY had given me into his GPS, and we were in front of the aunt’s house in very little time. Robby was waiting for us on the steps and came down as soon as we got out of the car.

Robby and I shook hands. “You remember Jack, right?”

“Sure,” Robby said and shook Jack’s hand. “Thanks for coming.”

“How’s your mom?” I asked.

“Still pretty shaken up. She decided to stay here for a few more days.” He shook his head. “I’m gonna see if I can convince her to sell the house. My aunt’s all about Mom moving in.”

“What’s so important you had us come out here, Robby?”

Robby took the cell phone that was in his hand and pushed a few buttons. He moved his finger across the screen and handed me the phone.

“I found that in the storage shed behind my house. I was just in there this morning because I remembered that Ricky said he wanted to store some of his stuff and.…”

It took a few seconds for the picture to register. When it did, I handed the phone to Jack. He got it quicker than I had.

“Fuck,” he said. “How many guns is that?”

“Twenty.”

I took the phone back and thumbed to the next picture. It was a second photo of the same green duffel bag, except the guns were in close-up now. This was some serious firepower.

“And you think these are connected to Ricky?”

“He asked for the key when he was up there a coupla weeks ago. I had no idea he was talking about guns, Ray.”

“Of course not.”

“God, Ray, that’s why I was so freaked out when I heard about the break-in at Mom’s. I’m thinking now maybe Ricky was mixed up in some bad shit, and it was going to come back on Mom.”

“Lemme see that again, Ray,” Jack said. I handed him the phone, and he took a minute or so to check out all the pictures. “This is military-grade shit. TEC-Nines. Where the hell did Ricky get his hands on shit like this?”

I made a mistake, Ray. A big one.

“Where’re the guns now?” I asked Robby.

“I kept them locked up in the shed. I put a bunch of blankets and tools over them, but I didn’t want to move them. I figured you guys would know what to do.”

“And Ricky gave you no idea about any of this?”

“No, not a clue. Honest.”

Jack put his hand on Robby’s shoulder. “We believe you, Robby.”

I thought back to my meeting with Ricky’s therapist, Dr. Burke. She’d told me Ricky was angry at his country. Angry and confused. Enough to get involved with something like this?
What the hell was this?

I pulled out my cell phone.

“Who you calling?” asked Robby.

“My buddy, Edgar. You sure they’re TEC-Nines, Jack?”

“Why?”

I held up a finger while I listened to Edgar’s phone ring.

“Ray,” Edgar said. “What’s the haps, my man?”

“I need you to check something out for me, Edgar. You at work?”

“Yeah, but I’m about to go on break. Whaddaya need?”

“I want you to find out if there have been any thefts of TEC-Nines from any military bases in the last … say, six months.”

He was silent for a few seconds. “I’ll do what I can, Ray. They usually keep that kinda stuff on the hush-hush. I’m not gonna find much in the papers.”

“If it were easy, you think I’d need to call you?”

I could practically hear his smile coming through the phone. Yes, I was souping him up, but Edgar was the only guy I could ask to find this information and not have it come back to bite me in the ass.

“All right, Ray. It’s gonna take some time, though. Wanna meet at The LineUp, say, for dinner?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Thanks, Ray.”

Thanking
me
for doing me a favor. “Thank you, Edgar. See ya later.”

“You trust that guy too much,” Jack said as I put my phone away.

“He’s come through before, Jack. Big-time. And he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

“In the meantime,” Robby said, “what are we gonna do about the guns?”

“Keep ’em right where they are,” Jack said.

“You think that’s safe?” I asked.

“As opposed to moving them and running the risk of getting caught with weapons probably stolen from the U.S. government? Yeah, for right now, it’s safe enough. Anybody else have access to that shed, Robby?”

“No. Just me. And I gave Ricky a key.”

“Then we leave ’em where they be,” Jack said.

The three of us stood there on the sidewalk of Ricky’s aunt’s house for a few minutes without speaking, but I was pretty sure what we were all thinking: who the hell had Ricky become? Running guns and storing them at his brothers’ house, falling for a prostitute, getting involved with an underage rich girl’s disappearance? Which was the big mistake Ricky had been talking about?

“I don’t know about you, Ray, but I wanna have a chat with that other cab driver who was shot the night Ricky was: Dillman.”

I said, “Robby, you got your cousin’s number? The one who owns the cab company?”

He thought about that. “My aunt’s got his business card inside. On the fridge. Give me a sec.” He ran inside.

“This aunt,” Jack said, “She’s not the cousin’s mom?”

“No, Robby told me Fred’s from his dad’s side.”

“Well, Cousin Fred’s been keeping a pretty low profile since the shooting. I don’t think I’ve read a word about him in the papers since the first day.”

“Probably on the advice of his lawyer and the insurance company. I imagine he’s gonna get his ass sued and his business turned inside out.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s it. But.…”

“It might be worth having a conversation with him.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, Ray.” He gave me a playful slap on the back. “You’re learning, young Skywalker.”

Robby came out of the house and handed Jack his cousin’s card.

“Have you spoken to Fred since the shootings?” I asked.

“No. He never even spoke to us at the wake or funeral. We’re not that close, but he shoulda paid his respects by now.”

“I would think, yeah. Anyway, we’re going to check on the other driver and then we’ll try talking to your cousin.”

“No offense, Ray, but shouldn’t the cops be doing that?”

“They probably already did. But with the new … developments, I’d like to hear Fred’s and Dillman’s answers to some questions.”

Robby hesitated, then started, “The guns.…”

“Yeah?”

“Can you keep Ricky out of it?”

“For now,” I said. “But I don’t see a way around sharing this info with the authorities, one way or another. We’re talking about a federal crime here, Robby.”

“I know. It’s just”—Robby paused to fight back tears—“this’ll kill my mom, Ray. She’s already halfway there. If Ricky was involved in something wrong, it’ll push her all the way.”

“We’ll do our best to protect her,” Jack said.

Jack was more optimistic than I was. At least, he was acting that way for Robby’s benefit.

“Okay,” Robby said, clearing his throat. “Thanks.” He shook our hands. “Be careful, guys.”

“Always,” Jack said. “Do me a favor and text me those pictures, Robby.”

Jack gave Robby his number, and within seconds the pictures of the guns Ricky had stored upstate traveled up into space and landed three feet away on Jack’s phone.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Robby,” I said.

“Cool.”

A car pulling up in front of the house got all of our attention. When the driver got out, I recognized him right away.

“You called Jimmy Key?” I asked Robby.

“Right after I called you guys. I needed help.”

I raised my phone. “Let’s keep the guns between us for right now, okay?”

“You don’t think Jimmy can help?”

“I think the fewer people who know about this, the better.”

Jimmy came up to us and shook our hands. I introduced him to Jack.

“The PI, right?” Jimmy said, clearly sizing up Jack.

Jack nodded. “That’s me. I hear you were over there with Ricky T.”

“Brothers-in-arms,” he said. “He said you were doing him a solid since he’s been back.”

“It was mutual,” Jack said.

Jimmy turned to Robby. “So what’s the emergency, little brother?”

Robby didn’t know what to say, so I chimed in. “Turned out to be nothing. He’s just pretty shaken up about the break-in.”

Jimmy pondered that for a five count and then nodded. “Hate to think I wasted a trip out here, though. Anyone up for a beer?”

“Love to,” Jack said. “But Ray and I gotta check out this witness in a case I’m working on. Rain check?”

“Yeah. What about you, Robby?”

Robby nodded. “Sounds good. I need to chill out. Let me just touch base with my mom after she gets back from the precinct. You wanna come in and wait for her and my aunt to get back from Brooklyn?”

Jimmy smiled that smile I’d seen him use on the bartender at Teddy’s. “Yeah.” He offered his hand to Jack and me. “We’re gonna do that beer, boys.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Soon.”

Robby and Jimmy went into the house, and Jack and I walked over to his car. “I got an idea, Ray.”

“Yeah?”

Jack looked at the card Robby had given him. “How about we drop in on cousin Fred instead of calling him?”

“Sounds like you want the element of surprise on our side.”

Jack grinned. “See that, Ray? You just said ‘our side.’”

I did, didn’t I?

*   *   *

The Pulaski Bridge connects Greenpoint to Long Island City over the Newtown Creek. Cousin Fred’s taxi garage was less than a mile into the borough of Queens. The building was on a busy corner and was painted yellow and black—the colors of New York City taxis. Jack was lucky enough to find a parking spot half a block away, and we walked back. A dark-skinned man was wiping down the outside of a cab and stopped when he saw us approaching.

“Don’t got no cars available.” He pointed to the intersection. “Best bet’s to hail one on the corner.”

“Actually,” Jack said, flipping open his wallet and displaying his PI license as if it were a badge, “we’re here to talk to the owner.”

The guy straightened up. “What about?”

“You Fred?”

“No.”

“Then it doesn’t concern you.” Jack paused. “Fred inside?”

“Last I checked,” the guy said, and then went back to wiping down his cab.

Jack and I headed over to what we assumed was the office. Whatever the temperature was outside, it was ten degrees hotter inside. A man in a blue work shirt and jeans was standing next to a fan, speaking on the phone. He saw us, turned his back, and very quietly ended his phone call. He turned around and took a good look at Jack and me. “More cops? Don’t you guys have anything else to work on?”

“That your lawyer on the phone?” Jack asked.

“I told you guys, I’m done talking. I got nothing more to say.”

“We’re friends of Ricky’s.” I noticed he had his name stitched over the left pocket of his shirt. “I’m Raymond Donne, and I was with him the night he was shot, Fred.”

Fred sat down in a well-worn chair behind his messy desk. He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re Jack.”

“The one and only.”

“Doesn’t change anything. I’m still done talking, especially if you guys ain’t even cops.”

Jack walked over to Fred’s desk, cleared a spot by removing a box, and sat down. Then he took out his phone, pressed and swiped the screen, and turned the phone around for Fred to see. Fred picked up a pair of glasses off the desk and slid them on. It took him a few beats to realize what he was looking at. “So?” he said.

“So,” Jack said. “Your late cousin—your
employee
—hid these somewhere. They’re more-than-likely
stolen
weapons. So, if the cops find out about these weapons and make the connection to your driver—your
cousin
—your business is going to be under much scrutiny, Fred.”

Fred stood and looked at the pictures again. “If the cops don’t know about these guns,” he said, “who found ’em?”

“That’s not for you to know. What we wanna know is what Ricky was doing with them.”

“How the hell would I—?”

“Fred, Fred, Fred,” Jack interrupted. “Please. These guns are connected directly to one of your drivers—our friend and an ex-cop—and your other driver shot last weekend has a record. How long do you think it’s gonna take the cops—the Feds—to put two and two together and come up with your company as the common denominator?”

Jack was mixing his math metaphors, but I kept my mouth shut as Cousin Fred’s face went from confused to concerned. When he finally spoke again, it was barely above a whisper.

“I don’t know about those guns or why Ricky had them. If he and Little Mike were involved in something, they were on their own.”

Jack looked at me and back to Fred. “We believe you,” he said. “What the Feds are going to believe is a different matter. Did you know that both of your cabs shot up that night had their trunks opened?”

“No.”

That’s because Jack’s lying,
I thought.