Freaky Deaky (10 page)

Thursday noon
Donnell went out to the limo parked in the turnaround part of the drive back of the house.

The car had been standing here since bringing the man home from jail yesterday, the man saying all the way up Woodward Avenue, “They never clean that place.” Couldn’t believe it. “They never clean the floor, they never clean the toilet. The smell in there was terrible.” The man should talk, with the messes he made, but that’s what he’d said. The man had no idea of all the things he didn’t know. Donnell had told him, “You think that’s bad and that ain’t even the real jail, that’s the police jail. You have to be in the old Wayne County jail sometime you want to experience a jail.” The man couldn’t get over they didn’t clean it. Today the man was more his regular self, not knowing shit what was going on and not seeming to care.

This afternoon he was going to watch movies. “What ones?” Donnell asked him. “You want an
Arnold Schwarzenegger festival or a Busby Berkeley?”

Lately the man liked Arnold Schwarzenegger being the barbarian with the big two-hand sword fighting the bad dudes. He liked to sit there with his martini and his popcorn and ask Donnell, if he was Arnold Schwartznigger—the way the man always said the name—which of the bitches in the movies he’d rather fuck. Like would he take that tall colored girl in the Conan picture or that Swedish broad in the other one? Wouldn’t matter how many times the man asked it, the man’s brain being mush, Donnell would say lemme think on it. Then he’d tell the man he’d take Grace Jones. Not ’cause he was racially inclined toward her, either, but ’cause she had a body on her went up and up and up and never stopped; though he would tell the bitch to get a wig if she couldn’t grow hair.

Today the man wanted Busby Berkeley, which meant he would be smoking weed with his martini. He liked to be under weed when he watched those musical numbers, the chorus girls moving their arms and legs like designs changing in a kaleidoscope. But there wasn’t any weed in the house. Donnell said he’d go out and get some.

He was standing by the limo, keys in his hand, about to open the door when he said to himself, Wait a minute, shit. He’d picked up most of a whole pound of weed must’ve been like two weeks ago. He
turned, getting his head to remember where he’d put it, looking up at this pile of bricks where he lived, a house as big as hotels he’d known. It came to him the weed was still in the car. He hadn’t taken it inside. No, it was still in the trunk. He walked back and opened it with the key, raised the lid. . . .

Donnell looked at the package, something wrapped in a brown plastic trash bag that wasn’t weed, the weed was in the spare-tire well, and said, Uh-oh, his hand on the trunk lid, not wanting to move. He saw the wires coming out of the package to the clothespin. He saw the cord running from the clothespin to a hole cut in the wall behind the back seat and said it again, Uh-oh. He heard about clothespins with copper bent around the ends. He felt his body made of stone while his brain lit up to see the meaning of this, why it was happening to him. . . . Like the same thing with the dude that had sold him the weed, Booker. Exactly. One week ago this day it was, Booker raised up from his chair and got blown to pieces. Was there a connection? Donnell couldn’t see one. Now it began to irritate him. He
bought
the shit, he didn’t deal it. If he wasn’t in the business, who wanted him to die? Nobody. Not lately anyway. Not even police. So the bomb was for the man. Open the door for the
man to get in the car. . . . Yeah, it might be for the man, Donnell realized, but both their asses would get shot into the sky.

Who wanted the man dead? The man wasn’t into nothing. Most of the time the man barely knew where he was at. There was only one person Donnell could think of would love it to see the man dead. That was the man’s brother, Markie. Except little Markie didn’t know shit, no way how to do a bomb. ‘Less he got somebody who did.

Well, the man wasn’t going nowhere today. If the man said he was, tell him wait till you get the scissors. Cut the string should do it. There wasn’t a ticking sound, it wasn’t that kind. Donnell paused on that. Uh-huh, cut the string, shit, and find out it’s what they
want
you to do, it’s a pressure re
lease
kind of bomb tricky motherfuckers rig up. The kind that did Booker.

Donnell kept thinking along that line now, wondering should he talk to the dude was Booker’s bodyguard, Juicy Mouth. Where was Juicy when his boss sat down in the chair? Ask him, yeaaah, did he know anybody was doing bombs lately?

Donnell got the weed out of the tire well and brought the trunk lid down, pushed on it gently till he heard the lock click.

When he answered the front door he had on black athletic shorts, a black sweatshirt and hundred-dollar running shoes. Donnell didn’t run; it was one of his leisure outfits. He looked at Mark Ricks
standing outside on the stoop and said, “Can I help you?”

Markie didn’t like it when he played with him. The little fella brushed past without a word, came in and, as usual, looked sideways quick at his mama looking down at him from the wall. Like he didn’t trust even a picture of the tiny bitch.

“How’s my brother?”

“Beautiful,” Donnell said. “The man remains above earthly shit like jail. You know what I’m saying to you? Man’s all the way live and into his pleasures.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”

“I know you do.”

Markie was trying to give him an icy-cold look now.

“Where is he?”

“At the movies,” Donnell said, and walked past Mark to lead the way into Woody’s library, his hangout: a big room full of books never opened, full of worn leather and dark oak, figured damask draperies; but a bar and stereo, too, and a pair of deep-cushioned recliners aimed at a 46-inch Sony television screen. Woody sat in one holding a straight-up martini in a wine goblet. Donnell said to him, “What can I get you while I’m up? You want something to nibble on? Your brother’s here. Turn your head this way, you see him.”

Woody, smiling, paid no attention.

Mark said, “Woody, how are you?”

Donnell, looking at the screen, said, “Oh, I didn’t realize.” And said to Mark, “Don’t bother him now, that’s his favorite Busby Berkeley, the banana number. Fine young ladies dancing with bananas big as they are, huh? Look at that, making banana designs. Look at your brother now, starting to cry with the pleasure of it.”

“He’s laughing,” Mark said.

“Little of each, crying and laughing,” Donnell said. “Yeah, the banana number. Man eats it up. Now you gonna see Carmen Miranda come out with all the fruit and shit on top her head.”

Woody, not looking at them, said, “Where my peanuts?”

“Got the munchies,” Donnell said. “Huh, you got the munchies? Well, you done ate all the peanuts up. Have to wait till I get some.”

Donnell was watching Carmen Miranda, her face all painted, the fruit and shit on her head. He heard Markie say, “Doesn’t he keep peanuts in the car?” The little fella close beside him. Markie saying something now that was not like him at all. Saying, “I’ll go look. Where’re the keys?”

Donnell paused, his brain asking him, Did you hear that? Is that what he said? Donnell turned very slowly to Markie looking up at him with a big-eyed funny look, the little fella
wanting
to do it and like afraid he might be told no. Donnell stared into
those big eyes looking for a tricky gleam of some kind. He said, “Yeah, the keys, they in the kitchen. On the hook by the door.” The little fella started to leave. “Wait now. The peanuts have to be on the back seat. You understand?”

Markie nodded, anxious. “Yeah, in back. I know.”

He left and Donnell eased into the recliner next to Woody, who was wiping his eyes, Woody saying, “I want to see this part again.”

“We both do,” Donnell said.

“But I want my peanuts.”

“Your brother went to get ’em.”

“My brother—what’s he doing here?”

“We gonna find out,” Donnell said. “Or, we might never.” He started to grin. “Lookit, shit, how they holding their bananas.”

Chris and his dad were in the kitchen, his dad frying hamburgers in the iron skillet at arm’s length, saying, “You want the green pepper and A-1?”

“No, do ’em the regular way.”

“Find out what she wants on hers.”

“It’s Greta,” Chris said. He stepped into the doorway to the dining-L. Across the living room Greta stood at a front window looking out at Lake St. Clair.

“What do you want on yours?”

“Just Lea & Perrins, if you have it.”

Chris came back to his dad at the range. “They’re all different, aren’t they?”

“I thought I told you that,” his dad said. “How long she gonna be staying?”

“You mean Greta?”

“Greta—I want to know what kind of an arrangement we have here.”

“You said it was okay.”

“Well, you ask me right in front of her.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Esther and I’re going to Toronto for a few days. I won’t be here.”

“You won’t be here for what, to chaperone us?”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” his dad said. “Twelve years on the job and you get suspended, what’s the first thing you do? You involve yourself with another girl.”

“I’m not in
volv
ing myself, I’m helping her out.”

“You go from one to the next.”

Chris said, “You want to know what
I
don’t understand? You’re going on a trip with Esther and you’re worrying about me being alone here with Greta. Does that make sense? You’re going for obvious reasons.”

“To have a good time.”

“That’s what I mean. But we’re here for one reason only. Greta needs a place to stay and she needs
help. I’m not involving myself in any way other than that.”

His dad said, “Who you kidding?”

They were eating when the phone rang. Chris said he’d get it and went out to the kitchen, leaving his dad alone with Greta in the dining-L.

Greta said, “I can see Chris takes after you. You sound so much alike, when you talk.”

The dad said, “You think so?”

“You seem more like brothers. I’m not just saying that, either, it’s true.”

“He’s got more hair,” the dad said, “but I’m bigger than he is.”

Greta smiled. “You see a father and son are good friends, I think that’s neat. It says something about both of them. I like your son a lot. He has qualities, I swear, you don’t see very often in guys these days.”

“He turned out okay,” the dad said. “I’ll tell you something. He gives you his word, you can take it to the bank.”

“That’s what I mean,” Greta said, “there’s nothing phony about him. He looks you right in the eye.”

The dad said, “So you went on that cruise, uh?”

Chris came back to the table not looking at
either of them. He sat there thinking until his dad said, “You gonna tell us who it was, or we have to guess?”

Greta, smiling, looked from the dad to Chris.

“It was Jerry. Somebody blew up Woody’s limo.”

What was left of Greta’s smile vanished. “He was in it?”

“His brother Mark was. They think he opened a door and the bomb went off. Killed him, like that.” Chris took his time and said, “Homicide wants to talk to me.”

Greta said, “Why?” sitting up straight in the dining room chair. “ ’Cause it was meant for Woody?”

Chris nodded and his dad said, “Wait a minute. What’ve you got to do with it?”

“I guess they think if you can take a bomb apart,” Chris said, “you can put one together.”

The scene was back of the house
, behind a police barricade across the drive, where the rear end of the limo was glued to the cement, gray metal scorched black, tires burned off, both doors and the trunk lid gone. The car had been blown in half, the front end driven thirty feet across the backyard where it lay nosed into a bed of shrubs. Fragments of glass, upholstery, torn bits of rusted metal were scattered about the drive in puddles of water. The evidence techs were packing up, getting ready to leave. The morgue wagon was pulling out as Chris arrived.

Jerry Baker had waited. He told Chris Homicide was still here, that’s all, inside talking to Woody Ricks and his chauffeur. Jerry asked him if he’d stopped at 1300 on the way.

Chris said, “What for? To give myself up?”

He had parked in front and walked up the drive watching a TV newsman dramatizing to a camera, arm raised to the mansion, describing this scene of
murder, foul play, a devastating act of destruction. . . .

Two of the garage doors, scorched black, were closed when the bomb exploded, protecting a gray Mercedes sedan parked inside. The third garage door was raised. Jerry told Chris that Mark Ricks had come out of the house from the kitchen and through the garage. He said that according to Donnell Lewis, the chauffeur, Mark was getting his brother’s peanuts he’d left in the car. He must have unlocked the driver-side door and pressed the button to unlock the rear door. Then when he opened it, Jerry said, Mark was blown into the garage with the door in his hand, only the hand was no longer attached to Mark. They brought Woody out to look at the body, make a positive I.D., and he couldn’t do it. He kept squinting his eyes, saying, What is that? The chauffeur, Donnell, very casual, wearing these sporty athletic shorts and jogging shoes, told him it was his brother. Jerry said the guy was burned but wasn’t exactly what you’d call a crispy critter. He looked more like some giant hand had picked
him up, squeezed him good and thrown him in the garage. Jerry raised his face to the overcast sky and sniffed.

“You smell it?”

“Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil,” Chris said. “Somebody knew what he was doing. What else’ve you got?”

“A burnt-up battery, a spring off a clothespin. Let’s see, I got safety pins from both the rear doors, stuck in bits of upholstery. We’ll find out it was dynamite, I’m pretty sure. See if any’s been stolen from around.”

Chris looked up at the back of the house, taking in its size, all the chimneys rising out of the slate roof, more like a venerable ivy-covered institution than a home. He believed you’d have to be a millionaire just to heat the place. At the other end of the house French doors opened onto a terrace with an ornamental cement rail around it. The swimming pool was probably inside there. Chris said, “You know what it reminds me of in a way? Booker’s, last week.”

“It does me too,” Jerry said. “It went through my mind there could be a nexus.”

“Maybe it’s the French doors. Or what you said about Donnell wearing jogging shoes made me think of it.”

“I’m going more by my nose,” Jerry said. “Walk in the house and take a whiff. They aren’t smoking Kools in there. If this one’s dynamite it’ll give Homicide something to think about. They like to get into motives and all that shit,” Jerry said. “I’m through here.”

“Who’s working it?”

“Half of Squad Seven’s out doing a house-to-house. Wendell’s inside. Wendell Robinson, dressed like he’s going to a party.”

“Wendell
is
a party,” Chris said. “If I have to talk to anybody I’d just as soon it’s Wendell.”

After Jerry left, Chris waited by his dad’s Seville, parked behind two identical medium-blue Plymouth sedans. It was a quiet street of old trees and homes built of old money. From the front, Woody’s house seemed more like a residence, except for the two cement lions sitting on either side of the entrance, guarding the place for Woody and his chauffeur. Just the two of them, according to Jerry, living in this great big house.

The front door swung in. Now Wendell Robinson appeared with Donnell, two black guys against the dark of that arched opening: one with hands on his hips showing his brown bare legs, the other in a beige three-piece suit, the Homicide lieutenant. Chris watched Wendell come past the stone lions now and down the slate walk adjusting his vest, buttoning the beige suit coat, Wendell with his cool, pleasant expression, paisley tie in rust tones against a soft ivory shirt. No way of telling a nickel-plated Smith auto was wedged in tight to his right hip. Chris said, “You’re looking fine,” and couldn’t help smiling. There was something about Wendell that made him feel good. “I understand you want to talk to me.”

“So you come here in your Cadillac and grin at me,” Wendell said, “think it’s funny. I like your style, Mankowski. You gonna confess or I have to beat it out of you?”

“I didn’t do it, I swear.”

“Okay, that’s enough of that shit. But there other people, I’ll tell you right now, probably gonna talk to you.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause they upset. I’m talking about people on the third floor. They want this one closed before it’s barely open. See, what happened, the inspector gets the call on this while he’s in the deputy chief’s office. He calls me to give it to Seven. I go down there, now your Major Crimes commander is also present and some other brass happen to stop in. You see the picture? They all in there theorizing their ass off who could have done it. Nobody’s even gone to the scene yet. Your name comes up. Hey, what about Mankowski? On account of the business you had with Mr. Ricks. One of them goes, Mankowski, man, he’s hotheaded. Another one says you cold-blooded, tough cop who don’t take any shit.”

“You serious?”

“A man was blown up. Okay, and you been around people that have got killed and you know how to make a bomb.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to sound like it does. You understand? Somebody mentions maybe Internal Control ought to look into Booker again.”

“They think I did Booker?”

“They not thinking, man, they theorizing, trying to put little pieces together, see what fits, get it closed. They wonder, What about that girl the man was alleged to have raped?”

“Yeah, it was her,” Chris said. “She sneaked out of the hospital and wired the car.”

“Or does she know somebody could have wired it? Like they picking lint off their clothes. They nervous is what they are.”

“ ’Cause the guy’s important,” Chris said, “Woody. You have money, you have clout.”

“That’s what it might seem,” Wendell said, “but that’s bullshit. They nervous ’cause we had six hundred and forty-six homicides last year. We closed better than half, sixty-one percent. But the FBI, they tell everybody seventy-four percent is the average nationwide. So they nervous we don’t look so good. Man, they don’t give a shit about Woody Ricks or his brother, it’s how
they
look. They think this one should be easy. Man gets a bomb put in his car, there must be somebody doesn’t like him, right? Simple.”

“Or somebody gains by it,” Chris said.

“Yeah, except the only one would gain, according to Woody, is the one that got blown up. Least that’s what I think Woody told me. The man’s hard to understand. He has Donnell like interpret for him, say what he means.”

“What about this,” Chris said. “What if Mark was putting the bomb in the car, doing the finishing touches, and it blew?”

“I’m told he wasn’t out there two minutes. How’s a man like that know how to make a bomb? The man wasn’t qualified. Look at it another way. If it was Mark hired it done, he wouldn’t have gone near the car, would he?”

Chris looked at the house. “What about Donnell?” The front door was still open. “If he isn’t on the computer it was erased.”

“I don’t have to look up Donnell,” Wendell said. “The man’s been arrested for assault, robbery, extortion, causing disturbances. . . . Did federal time back when he was a member of the Panthers, wore the little beret? They got him for possession of a machine gun and other contraband kinds of shit in his house, hand grenades and such.”

“I think he’s watching us,” Chris said.

Wendell looked at the house. “Sure he is, thinking I’m gonna try to set him up. Which I might have to, ‘less I find me a bomb maker someplace.”

“How’d he get next to Woody?”

“Claims they known each other a long time. Says Mr. Woody took him in and it changed his life.”

“That’s what he calls him, Mr. Woody?”

“There is something peculiar,” Wendell said, “how it is between those two. I said to him, ‘You the man’s chauffeur. Where’s the rest of the help?’ Donnell gives me his look, says, ‘I’m all the help the man needs.’ ”

“Maybe the Panther lets Woody go down on him,” Chris said, “and Woody lets the Panther do whatever he wants. He ever deal drugs?”

“Now you come to another theory,” Wendell said, “tie it some way to Booker. I don’t mean with you, I mean two bombs all of a sudden go off in a week. So we ask ourselves, who did Booker? Was it the people supply him?”

“He was leaning that way,” Chris said.

“Okay, what if Woody was financing Booker, setting him up to go independent? How’s that sound? The people up above find out and take them both out.”

Chris said, “You want it to be dope-related, don’t you?”

Wendell said, “I want it ’cause if it ain’t, what the fuck is it? People kill each other in this city, if it ain’t over pussy or fussing over who owes money or a parking place, then it’s dope. Killing over turf or a
busted deal. The vans they go around in? They call ’em gunships. Drive by a house and spray it with an Uzi. And you know what?”

“Half the time it’s the wrong house.”

“And when they do get the right one they shoot the wrong people. They shoot little kids happen to be in the room.”

“This was a bomb.”

“That don’t bother me. They’ll throw a pipe bomb in the house. You’ve seen it done. They can make a pipe bomb, they can make any kind. What’s the difference?”

“What’s Donnell say?”

“Somebody wired the wrong car.”

“He tell you that with a straight face?”

“Why couldn’t it happen?”

“Wendell, the guy’d have to come to the wrong house first. Look at it. With the fucking lions sitting out in front. A guy’s gonna plant a bomb he scouts the place, knows exactly where he’s going.”

Wendell, hands in his pockets, stared at the house. The front door was closed now. He said, “Or, Donnell thinks it could’ve been wired when the car was someplace else. You know, parked with some other limos. They all look alike. Jerry say you have the package ready, you could hook it up in five minutes.”

“Maybe Jerry could,” Chris said. “I’d want to
take a little more time myself. But where’s Donnell go without Woody? I don’t mean to the store, I mean where there’d be other limos. But if Woody’s along—he gets out, the guy wires it and Woody gets back in, that’s where it blows, right? Not in the backyard.”

Wendell was nodding, resigned. “I suppose.”

Chris looked at the house again, wondering what they were doing in there, right now. He said to Wendell, “How come Mark went to get the peanuts, not Donnell?”

“Donnell says Mark wanted to do it.”

“What if Woody had his own car wired,” Chris said, “and sent Mark out to get the peanuts?”

“He couldn’t have, he didn’t know Mark was there. The man doesn’t seem to know much of anything. Eyes all watery like a skid-row burnout.”

“Psychosocially debilitated,” Chris said.

“I like that,” Wendell said, “I’ll put that down. I talk to him, here’s his brother blown to shit just a while ago, the man hardly seems to realize it. I don’t mean ’cause he’s in shock, either. Man has a wet brain.”

Chris was looking at the house again. “What if it was Donnell that set it up? Somehow he talked Mark in to getting the peanuts.”

“I’m gonna collect my people and leave,” Wendell said. “I’ll tell them on the third floor I interrogated you and found you psychosocially debilitated,
couldn’t think of nothing but peanuts. How’s that sound?”

Chris was still looking at the house. He nodded and said, “Planters Peanuts, in the blue can.”