A Bullet Apiece (17 page)

“Officer, if you're involved with The Beef's murder, just tell me about it. I'm in the truth business, remember?”

“I got nothin' to say.”

“I don't believe you killed him.”

“What?” The front of his dress shirt was dark with sweat.

“I said, I don't believe you killed him. Whatever happened in that alley, I don't think you were the one who killed The Beef.”

He stared at me as though dazed. I continued.

“I don't think you were around for any noble purpose, either. But you weren't the knife man. Whatever the reason, it's not important to me. The Beef was the kind of guy who would give anyone who knew him murderous thoughts. If he crossed you, or did you wrong, I don't believe anyone on the force would think twice about you giving him a little sap in a dark alley.”

Downing's lip trembled. “I—” He couldn't form words for a moment. “I just wanted to teach him a lesson. That blowhard son-of-a-bitch! Talkin' about my wife that way! He doesn't even know her! Then I thought, what if he did? Did he come near her? Threaten her?” His face looked waxen, hastily molded atop a skull.

I nodded sympathetically. If I could just keep him talking. A shadow moved in the kitchen. With his back turned, Downing didn't notice.

“I came home that night and couldn't sleep. My wife was asleep in the bed and all I could do was stare at her and wonder. I got so mad, I got in my car and came back down here. I didn't want to kill him. I just wanted to hurt him. Let him know it was not okay for him to talk about my wife. I didn't care if he knew who it was. I wanted to hurt him.”

“Then what happened?”

“I walked down the block and came up to the alley. That's when I saw the body. I didn't know it was The Beef. Until he tried to sit up. That scared the hell out of me. I saw it was him. I just stood there. He got to his knees. And when he raised up, he held his hand to his neck. His throat was cut. He was gurgling. Reaching out to me. I came towards him, and … and … something snapped.
 
I….”

“You what?” I asked without malice.

“I walked around behind him and I hit him over the head. Twice. He fell over on his face. Then I panicked. I bolted out from the alley, and there was the cab. Hamill saw me. I ran. I just ran. I couldn't stop. God!” He brought his free hand up and rubbed his jaw, and then wiped his eyes. Kira's eyelids fluttered open. She raised her head and looked dazedly at Downing.

“He was already done for. You did him a favor,” I said.

“No, he wasn't. Maybe he would have lived.”

“Not with his throat sliced ear to ear. Another minute and he would have bled to death anyway.”

“But he was alive when I got to him.”

“Hardly. Actually, you helped him along. You put him out of everybody's misery.”

“I can't think that.”

“Officer Downing. The police will be here any time. I don't think anyone here is going to say a word about your involvement. Let us go, and our lips are sealed.”

“No,” Kira said. Downing looked at her, hatred replacing the confusion on his face.

“What did you say?” he demanded.

“I said no. You're going to take the fall for The Beef's death.”

“Like hell I am, you Jap bitch! Your brother's the one who did it! And he's gonna hang for it!”

“What proof do you have?” Kira asked coolly. “You just confessed your involvement in the murder. My brother had nothing to do with it. You're going to let us go, and we're going back to the happy life we've made.”

“Not if I can help it!” Downing turned the gun on Kira. In the same instant that I was going to yell out to stop him, Broad Jimmy emerged in the doorway to the kitchen. He looked like some zombie creature, crazed with bloodlust in the dimness. He reached both his arms around Downing's torso and lifted him off the ground. Downing's gun fired once before it fell out of his slack hand. I could see Jimmy's face change as he began to squeeze. Downing gasped once, going pale.

“Jimmy,” I said as calmly as I could. He ignored me and kept the pressure on Downing's rib cage. I heard a crackling sound, followed by another. A stricken moan escaped Downing's lips. A bit of froth came sputtering out.

“Jimmy,” I said again, louder. “Jimmy, don't. Don't kill him. Jimmy! He's a cop, for chrissakes!” I stood up. Kira lunged for me and knocked me down. She kicked at me with high heels. I grabbed one of them before it made contact with my face and shoved upward. She went down on her ass and her head hit the table behind her. She lay still. I heard a sickening crunch in the quiet after her fall. I looked Jimmy's way and grimaced. He had snapped Downing's neck. It was as if he couldn't see Kira on the floor or her idiot brother sobbing in his chair, his hands still under him, or me sitting in front of his chair. He held onto Downing's body for a moment. Then he let him fall. That's when Jimmy seemed to register that Kira was on the floor. He stepped over Downing. A look of tenderness came over Jimmy's face. He stood over her.

“Kira,” he croaked. He got down on his knees and lifted her up. She was like a toddler in his arms. I stood and backed away from them. Somehow I remembered the locked door. I walked over and unlocked it. As I came back to them, the first sirens wailed in the distance. I steered clear of Jimmy and Kira. He was beginning to sob now, too, great big bear sobs. A loud crier. He drowned out Ichiro, the worthless, blubbering lump who was just a boy, not a man. Not even a murderer, perhaps.

I saw red and blue lights play across the dim walls of the tavern. I retrieved my gun and shoved it into my jacket pocket right before the door flew open and three police officers filed in, guns drawn. When they saw us, they trained their weapons on all of us. They looked like a commercial for the police academy. After all I'd witnessed the past two days, though, I just didn't have the stomach for sarcasm. I raised my hands and waited for the rigamarole to begin.

Twenty minutes later, Broad Jimmy was cuffed and sitting in the back of a squad car. Kira's brother had already been brought in for questioning. Kira herself would need a trip to the hospital, followed by her own round of questioning. I hoped she kept to the same story, and that it was the truth. It felt like the truth. All I didn't know was if her brother had the grit to be The Beef's cutter. Sure didn't seem likely.

Officer Downing's body was covered, lifted onto a stretcher, and taken away into the night. He, too, got a free ride to the hospital—to its air-conditioned bottom floor, that is.

I was the only one who didn't need a doctor. At least, not the care of a doc at City Hospital. I remained at the tavern and told a cop new to me, Detective Fleischman, everything I knew. Except for two things. I didn't mention that I was one of The Beef's body haulers. I only said that I didn't know where the body was, and that was the truth. I also didn't say anything about Officer Downing's role in The Beef's death. I had seen the slice in his neck. Downing probably thought he was the lynch pin, but I didn't. And I kept my story that way. It was a risk, considering that Kira was hot to pin the whole thing on Downing. But it would be her word against mine. And her idiot brother had been near catatonic throughout the whole ordeal. Call it a favor to Downing. From one man who understands another's rage very well.

I was released an hour after the police arrived. After a couple of meaningful promises to be in touch and not to think about leaving town any time soon. Fine. I'd cancel my ticket for the French Riviera then.

I walked up to Locust, away from the gawkers, the press photographers, and police cars. I found my car. Some nice guy had parked so close to my front bumper that I had to rock the car in reverse and first several times to get out of the space. I resisted the temptation to key the side of his car. I'd had enough of vengeance for one day.

I crossed Grand to Kingshighway and then headed toward my apartment building in the West End. The music store downstairs was darkened. In my hallway, I heard quiet music coming from the artist's apartment, along with some other noise inside. I unlocked my door and switched on the overhead light. I didn't expect any surprises, and for once, reality met my expectations. I closed and locked the door. I didn't even have the energy to make a night cap. I urinated, washed my face, and stripped to my T-shirt and boxers. I had left a fan on in my bedroom, which made it somewhere shy of bearable. Bearable enough to sleep like the dead.

* * *

I woke up the next morning with the snap of Officer's Downing's neck in my ears. I felt grouchy, despite having slept until ten. Things felt unfinished. The Beef was dead. The cabbie Tim Hamill was dead. Officer Downing was dead. Broad Jimmy was done for, and would probably face life without parole. That left Kira's brother, Ichiro. Was he The Beef's killer? Then, of course, there was Kira herself. If anyone was the lynch pin, she was it. Could she have pulled this off? Years of desire for vengeance and her smarts made it plausible. Jimmy loved her for real. She just may have put on an act with him all these years to get back at George Reynolds, but fifteen years is a long time for someone to star in shadow theater. And finally, Simple Simon. He was in contact with Hamill. Kira had said something to him in the tavern that caused him to bolt out of there, refusing to talk to me. But I had laid him out during the time Tim Hamill was choked of his last breath—at least I thought. Simon had better be conscious today and ready to talk. Momentarily, and in a sick way, I was glad the first human being he'd see upon waking would be Tim Hamill, rigid in his easy chair.

I put coffee on to brew and made some toast. I didn't have the appetite for much more. I contemplated going into the office, or contacting the Five to get any word from Detective Fleischman. But I decided the hell with that. Instead, I went downstairs and out the front door onto the sidewalk. It was cloudy. Still humid, but a breeze from the west blew along the boulevard. Let it rain, I thought. Hard. I got a morning paper and pack of cigarettes from the corner shop. Back inside my apartment, I searched the paper for any mention of the “missing” George Reynolds or Officer Downing's death. There was nothing. Too late in the night for the downtown scribes to put it in. There was a sidebar on Tim Hamill's death, however. Seems he'd been strangled in his apartment by an unknown intruder. Nothing stolen. A man found sleeping in Hamill's bed was taken into custody. Currently, police had no motive and were investigating. The usual inkwell drained of blackened bullshit when there were no leads.

I read through the whole paper and pretended to care how the Cardinals were doing. I read the op-ed pages, columnists alternately smearing and elevating John F. Kennedy, and moaning about Cuba. The usual letters to the editor about traffic problems, Civil Rights. I even looked at the damned real estate section and dreamed about a little cabin down on the Current River, or a piece of property deep in the Ozarks. I grew bored, restless, and then sleepy.

At around four in the afternoon the phone rang. I woke slowly, not wanting to rouse up out of my stupor. My mouth tasted like burnt coffee laced with ashes. I had been leaning in the chair on my right arm, and it still smarted from Officer Downing's night-stick attack. I picked up the phone with my left hand.

“Mr. Darvis? This is Detective Fleischman.”

Courtesy from a cop. Put
that
in the papers tomorrow.

“I'm here. What have you got for me?”

“You sitting down? This may take awhile.”

“Sure, I'm sitting. You told me to stay close. I haven't really budged from my apartment.”

He gave a gruff chuckle. Simon was up, but not necessarily at 'em. When he found out where he was and what had happened, he caved, Fleischman said. The grey-bearded songbird. Kira had meant to rely on her brother and Tim Hamill to finish The Beef. On a predictable night, when The Beef would be the last person at the bar, maybe assisted with some free drinks from Kira, she would call Hamill directly. He would pick up Ichiro, and they would come down to the tavern. It was important to the timing that Kira allow The Beef to leave, hoping that he would be too wasted to go far, it seems. Seems, too, they'd made two previous, unsuccessful attempts. The first time, The Beef had strayed too far for them to find him. The second time, when they had the perfect opportunity, Ichiro got cold feet and couldn't go through with it.
That figures
, I thought. That's when Kira decided not to rely on her mousy brother for the job anymore. And when she approached Simon, he let on that Kira had a thing for him. She may have made sexual promises, as well. Whatever charms she offered, Simon became the willing cut-man. On the third attempt, the night The Beef was successfully murdered, just Simon and Hamill were at the scene. After Simon sliced The Beef in the alley, he got into Ichiro's cab, which was parked on a side street, and the two got away.
Hamill must have pulled around the block and then “found” the body
, I figured. Detective Fleischman didn't mention anything about Officer Downing showing up unplanned after Simon sliced The Beef's throat and adding his contribution to The Beef's death. I didn't know if he was leaving that part out, or that he just didn't know. And I wasn't about to ask. I was already in some trouble with the law for knowing about the crime and not going to the police. I waited to hear if Fleischman knew I helped Broad Jimmy with the meat-packing job, but he never mentioned that, either.

“So far, so good,” I muttered.

“What's that?” Fleischman asked.

“Hm? Oh, nothing. So far it makes sense,” I responded.

Fleischman continued. The next morning, Hamill and Simon came back for The Beef's body. It was then that Kira had drugged Broad Jimmy. Which now makes sense why the bar was closed. Simon, cooperating with Hamill, weighted The Beef's body and dropped it in the Mississippi, somewhere upriver and out of sight. They might have to send divers for a look-see, Fleischman said. They'd more likely find a guy in cement slippers before finding The Beef, but who knows? Simple Simon hadn't said anything about my involvement. Yet. Unwittingly, I had helped Kira with The Beef's disposal. If she talked, I was looking at jail time as an accomplice. But then again, she was looking at worse.

On top of everything else, I wasn't getting paid for this little venture. There's always that risk, especially with a squirrelly client—or with a client likely heading to Gumbo. A payout just wasn't in the cards for me this time. Even if I had been paid, a hundred bucks would come nowhere close in matching the risk to my life and limb. Maybe I'm just too efficient. Or, maybe I'm just not that smart.

“We're going to need you to come downtown and answer some more questions, Darvis. Corroborate a few things,” Fleischman said. Nothing in his tone suggested I was in deeper trouble. But the earlier courtesy from him was gone.

“I'll be there in an hour. And thanks,” I said before hanging up. I sat in the armchair and stretched out my right arm, trying to relieve the muscle pain. The shackles on my wrists had left their mark, too, and I shook myself to clear the feeling. A shower and some food could only delay the inevitable station visit. And I had one call to make before I left. I dialed St. Mary's Hospital.

If it was possible to feel any lower, more dependent, or helpless, I haven't known it. For all I've tried to do these last few days, I've seen too many people killed. I haven't been able to stop two clients from committing the crime of murder. I've broken the law, acted cavalier, hurt my body, and pissed off a few cops. I've uncovered more human stupidity, selfishness, and greed, and still wasn't able to do anything about it. And my role in these dark and dumb proceedings might lead me to lose my license, and even do some time.

“Bertie? It's Ed. Yeah. Well, not so good. You? You sure? This a bad time? You weren't sleeping or anything? Listen, I'm gonna need a good lawyer. Yeah, I mean it. Well, let me tell you all about it.”

My visit with Fleischman was surprisingly short. When I arrived at the station he informed me that Bertie Albanese had phoned him on my behalf. He made a few mild jibes about me, and my relationship with Bertie. But whatever Bertie had said did the trick. Fleischman treated me like a peer. A couple of times, as I laid out for him how Broad Jimmy had hired me, I felt a rush to confess that I had helped move the body. But I didn't. I'd already filled Bertie in, so I saw no reason to say it all again. That's the thing about the sacrament of confession: you can wash away your sins and be absolved of any wrong doing. But sometimes it means splashing those sins right into somebody else's face. And I really wasn't up to that. So, I decided to keep it between me and Bertie. And I wanted to see what Fleischman knew. Any mention of my role with the body disposal never came up.

Fleischman released me, but again reminded me not to leave town. I would be subpoenaed to appear at Broad Jimmy's trial. As I stood up to go, Fleischman gripped my arm, not hard, but tight enough to be meaningful nonetheless. I looked at him as he brought his face close to mind. The friendly dark sparkle in his eyes had cooled.

“You're lucky you have a friend in Bertie Albanese. Don't forget that.”

“Don't I know it,” I said, and nodded at Fleischman. Some unspoken acknowledgment passed between us. Fleischman was warning me. He knew I was involved in The Beef's disappearance. Or he suspected I wasn't telling him everything, and I thought again of the lion giving one last warning to the lion tamer through the pressure of its jaws:
I'm not taking your head off this time. But next time….
I didn't offer Fleischman my hand as I left. Such gestures of civility are empty at a moment like that.

As I drove back home, a few spare raindrops hammered my windshield before turning into a torrent, vengeful ghouls against the glass, every one a person I've let down or let die. I pictured Hamill sitting in his chair, dead, his throat bulging and bruised, until his half-lidded eyes suddenly spring wide, leaking blood, and he lunges for me to unite in death. I struck my fists against the wheel and then one against my head to shake the macabre image. I still didn't know who killed him. I was inclined to believe Officer Downing didn't do it. His motive for wanting to kill The Beef was pretty weak to begin with. He had the opportunity in the alley. He had the means with his nightstick. But motive? Talking trash about someone's wife is never an invitation to a night of dancing and fine wine, but I didn't think Downing was going back to Broad Jimmy's to kill The Beef. To teach him a lesson, yes, but more than anything he ran afoul of Kira's plan right at the time it was actually being executed. The secret to comedy might be in the timing, but in my business, it's no secret that timing more often leads to tragedy.

A tremendous crash of thunder and a fresh doubling of the downpour distracted me from any more philosophizing. I cursed my flimsy wipers and their deteriorating rubber. Looks like I'd have to delay replacing them after this case. I had to get off the highway at Jefferson and take surface streets back home. Some of them were washed out. Stalled cars blocked one or two low-lying spots. By the time I got home, nearly an hour after I had left the downtown station, my nerves were shot and my right arm was killing me. I was in a killing mood myself. Soon enough I'd have a bottle of gin in my sights.

I parked in the garage, grateful I didn't have to play the parking game out on the flooded streets. I climbed the back stairs to my hallway, glad to be out of the rain. The overhead light at the top of the stairs had been replaced, but now, the one at my end of the hall was out. Figures, I thought. Didn't really matter, though. I'd always said I could find my way blindfolded to my apartment. Hell, I've certainly done it blind drunk before. Tonight, though, I was glad for the bit of grey light pouring in through the lone window that overlooked the street. Just as I got to my door, a flash of lightning spotlighted the dingy, white walls and the thinning green carpet. As I found the lock and drove the key in, another flash of lightning brought my attention to the carpet in front of my door. A fresh set of wet footprints greeted me. I backed up and felt for the wall behind me. Another lightning flash revealed that there were two sets of footprints leading from the stairway to my door. Knowing I only had two feet, I realized that someone had come to visit and might not have left.