Irish Eyes (15 page)

Mrs. Rudolph gave Tanya an approving pat on the back.

“Did Deecie tell your mama where she was going?” I asked.

Tanya shook her head no.

“Did you see what kind of a cab they went away in?” I asked.

“Yellow,” Tanya said.

“Probably B&E Cab,” Mrs. Rudolph said. “The man drives that cab, he stays parked up at the Eastlake MARTA Station. Lot of folks live here ride with that fella.”

I hesitated. “Did you tell the police what you just told me?”

The little girl’s eyes got very wide, and she put the three fingers of her left hand in her mouth and sucked hard. “My daddy told me to keep my mouth shut. He told the police we don’t even know Deecie. My daddy told a lie, didn’t he?”

Mrs. Rudolph patted her shoulder. “Grown-ups got different ways of saying things, Tanya. Your daddy probably forgot about knowing Deecie.”

“Thank you, Tanya,” I said. The little girl smiled shyly.

“I thought of something might help,” Mrs. Rudolph added. “How you maybe could find William. Deecie, she used
to bring me bread sometimes. Cake and rolls too. She say William work someplace where they let him take stuff that’s old.”

“A bakery?”

“Maybe,” Mrs. Rudolph said. “Or some kinda store or something.”

“Do you remember what kind of bread it was?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Mrs. Rudolph said. “That bread was good. Doubletree Farms. I like the cinnamon raisin kind.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Say,” she said, “my phone number is in the telephone book. Mrs. Austine Rudolph. You think you could call me if you find out where Deecie gone to? Let me know about Faheem? That baby is my little lamb.”

“I promise,” I said. “If I find Deecie, I’ll let her know you’re worried about her.”

“You do that,” Mrs. Rudolph said. She looked at Baby and Sister. “Y’all take care now. I’ll be praying about Deecie and Faheem.”

“We’ll be praying too,” Sister called.

We watched her take Tanya back inside the apartment house. The women we’d been talking to were standing now, and pointing toward the van.

“Did we do good?” Baby wanted to know.

“Very good,” I said. “I don’t know what I would have done without you two.”

While we were talking to Mrs. Rudolph, the kids had moved their basketball game directly in front of the van, blocking the whole street.

I gave a tentative little toot on the horn. The teenagers studiously ignored me, running and shooting. One of them even bounced the basketball off the van’s bumper, laughed, and then ran over and did a slam dunk in the hoop.

I bit my lip and glanced over at Sister, who’d insisted it was her turn to ride shotgun.

“Uh-oh,” Sister said, sizing up the situation nicely.

I rolled the window down.

“Hey, fellas,” I called. Very friendly. Very casual. “Could you call a time-out for a minute? Let me by?”

All but one ignored me. He was on the short side, powerfully built, wearing a sleeveless red jersey emblazoned with a cartoon Tweety Bird.

“Yo,” he called, walking toward the van. He had a yellow dorag tied around his head, and baggy black shorts that hung past his knees.

He sauntered up to the van and leaned in my open window until his face was inches from mine.

“What’s this fool want?” I heard Baby mutter.

“S’up?” Tweety Bird asked. His breath smelled like beer and jalapeño peppers.

“I’d like you all to move out of the street for a minute so that I can take these ladies home,” I said, trying to shrink away from him.

He glanced over at Baby and Sister. “How y’all doin?” he drawled.

“We’re tired,” Baby said snappishly. “And you boys are in the way.”

“Game ain’t over,” Tweety said. “Lil’ Bit, he on a shootin’ streak.”

“If you could just take a time-out—” I started.

He reached over and grabbed at the slender gold chain around my neck, the one that held Edna’s St. Christopher medal.

“Say. This is nice,” he said, his fingers sliding down toward the medal.

“Hey,” I said sharply, slapping his hand away.

He looked surprised. Straightened up, called over his shoulder. “Yo, Lil’ Bit. Come tell this bitch here we ain’t playin’.”

I didn’t wait to hear what Lil’ Bit might have to say to us.

“Hang on, girls,” I said quietly. I threw the gearshift into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal, and the van jerked backward, away from the curb. Tweety, whose hand had been on the window jamb, was knocked off balance and nearly fell.

“What the fuck?” he yelled, recovering after a second.

I was trying to watch where I was going in the rearview mirror, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw the group of them, six in all, charging toward me.

Suddenly there was a sharp crack, and a small pinhole appeared in the glass of the windshield.

“They shootin’ at us?” Baby asked.

I didn’t intend to stick around to find out. I stomped the accelerator and, barely missing the parked cars lining both sides of the curb, managed to back all the way to the corner, making a sharp left before I threw it into drive and got the hell out of Dodge.

“Have mercy!” Baby yelled. “Wish we’d had Bettye Bond’s shotgun back there.”

My hands didn’t stop shaking until we were a mile away. I pulled into the first convenience store we came to.

“Are you girls okay?” I asked.

“We’re all right,” Sister said.

“Callahan?” Baby said, her voice trembling a little. “You got any cash money? I believe I’d like to get me a cold beer, settle my nerves.”

We settled on a four-pack of kiwi wine coolers.

A
fter I dropped the girls back at the senior citizen high-rise, I drove over to the Eastlake Park MARTA Station and parked by the cab stand. Yellow cabs came and went, but I didn’t see a cab that matched the description Mrs. Rudolph had given me. At four-thirty, the trains started disgorging people headed home from downtown. Two cabs pulled up in front of me at the stand.

A battered green-and-white minivan with a sign mounted on the roof that proclaimed it “Mexi-taxi” parked behind me. He tooted his horn. I ignored him, and he tooted again. Finally, he got out, walked up to the side of the van. I locked the door and rolled the window down an inch.

“Hey!” he said angrily. “You can’t be parking here, lady. This for cabs.”

“I’m looking for somebody,” I said. “The man who drives for B&E cabs?”

“You gotta look someplace else,” the Mexican insisted, pounding the roof of my van. “This is for the cabs, not people looking for other people.”

“Do you know that driver?” I asked.

The Mexican looked around. “I’m gonna call a MARTA cop, tell them you breaking the law, lady.”

I’d had enough confrontations for one day. “Never mind.” I started the van and pulled away from the curb.

The shopping center parking lot was full, which puzzled me until I remembered that it was Friday night.

The Budget Bottle Shop was packed. Customers lined up with carts full of merchandise, their breath leaving the store windows damp with condensation. Two clerks stood behind the Plexiglas cage surrounding the front counter, ringing up cases of beer, bottles of malt liquor, cartons of cigarettes. I stood by the beer cooler, trying to act interested in its offerings.

“‘Scuse me.” A runty little white woman pulled the cooler door open and reached inside. I stepped away, watched her load two six-packs of wine coolers into her shopping cart. For the first time, I noticed a flyer taped to the wall beside the front door.

It was on cheap blue paper, and had a headline lettered with Old West type. “WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE,” it said. “$10,000 Reward for information leading to capture and arrest of party responsible for the March 17 shooting of POLICE DETECTIVE BUCKY DEAVERS.”

There was a grainy photograph of Bucky, the same old one the newspaper had used, of him in his dress uniform. “Contact Pete Viatkos, Budget Bottle Shop,” the poster urged. “Confidentiality Respected.”

A hand clamped over my shoulder. Startled, I whirled around.

“You turning into a bounty hunter?” It was John Boylan. He wore a dark blue sweatshirt with “Security” lettered across the front.

I flushed, feeling unaccountably found out, unable to frame a sensible retort.

“I was here,” I said finally, wishing instantly that I had said the first thing that had come to my mind, which was Fuck you, asshole.

“So I heard,” Boylan said. He hitched at the waistband of his blue slacks. “Must have been tough.”

“It was.”

He jerked his head toward the poster. “Pete had me run off five hundred of those babies. Posted ‘em in every shitbag bar, restaurant, and gas station in Midtown. That oughtta flush out somebody.”

“You work for Pete Viatkos?”

“How do you think Bucky got this job?”

“I don’t know,” I said innocently. “I didn’t even know he was working here until after the shooting.”

“Deavers was a hustler,” Boylan said. “He was always looking for a little extra income. So I introduced him to Pete. They liked each other fine. Now I’m feelin’ kind of bad, you know? On account of me being the one got Bucky the job.”

“I’m sure nobody thinks it’s your fault Bucky got shot.” Personally, I was convinced it was his fault. It needed to be somebody’s fault.

“Tell that to Lisa Dugan, the bitch,” Boylan said sourly.

“I heard internal affairs is getting involved in the investigation,” I said. “Something about unauthorized after-hours jobs.”

“That’s a bunch of crap,” Boylan said. “This is a free country, last I heard. The APD gets my full attention forty-plus hours a week. What I do on my own time is my own goddamn business.”

“Unless there’s a policy against it,” I pointed out.

“Fuck policy,” Boylan said.

“Whatever,” I said, not agreeing or disagreeing. “Hey, uh, has anybody gotten a line on Deecie Styles?”

“Who?”

I jerked my thumb in the direction of the wanted poster. “The clerk, the only witness to the shooting,” I said patiently. “Somebody told me the girl disappeared. With the videotape and all the money from the safe. I know the cops are looking for her.”

“Who woulda told you something like that?”

“Somebody who knew that Bucky was my best friend,” I said. “So what about it? Does Viatkos have any idea where she might have gone?”

“I just work here. Pete doesn’t tell me his private business.”

“Is he here now?”

“He’s busy,” Boylan said. He turned around and went over to the cashier’s cage, standing to the right of it, arms crossed over his chest, his holstered revolver plainly visible in the clip at his waist. Wyatt Twerp, I thought.

I went out to the van and got in, locking the door. I got the number for the Budget Bottle Shop from directory information, then I called the number on the cell phone.

“Bottle Shop.” It was a man’s voice.

“Pete Viatkos, please,” I said.

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Viatkos, this is Callahan Garrity. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“Garrity?” He ran it around a little. “You a member of the Shamrocks?”

“Uh, not at this time,” I said. “Actually, I’m a former APD detective. I was the one who was in your store Wednesday night when Bucky Deavers was shot.”

“Oh yeah,” he said slowly. “The detectives told me there was a friend with him.”

“Actually, I was waiting outside in the car,” I explained. “But I was the one who called nine-one-one. Or rather, I had your employee, Deecie Styles, call them.”

“What’s this about?”

“I’d like to find Miss Styles, to talk to her about the robbery.”

“I’d like to find her to wring her neck,” Viatkos said. “But she’s gone. We got cops looking everywhere for her. Anyhow, no disrespect, but what’s this to you?”

“Look,” I said patiently. “I’m outside your store right now, in my car. Could I just come in and talk to you?”

“I’m pretty busy,” he said.

“It won’t take long.”

Boylan glowered as I walked past him into the stockroom. Viatkos stood at the door to the office and motioned me inside.

His office was an oversized cubicle, partitioned off from the cavernous stockroom area by walls of cheap particle-board paneling that didn’t quite reach all the way to the ceiling.

A small space heater stood in the middle of the floor, making more noise than heat. He sat behind a huge metal desk and gestured for me to sit in a metal folding chair opposite it.

“You were in the store last night,” he said. “Snooping around. What’s your business in all this?”

“Bucky is my best friend,” I said. “I want to know who shot him and why.”

Viatkos took a bite of a slice of pizza sitting on a greasy cardboard box. “Want some?” he offered, pointing to the pie in between chews. “It’s my busy night, so this is dinner.”

“No thanks,” I said. “I’m really wondering what you can tell me about Deecie Styles.”

“Goddamn little thief,” Viatkos sputtered. “I gave the cops her address and phone number, everything I had in my files. I’m tellin’ you, you give these people a break, give ‘em a decent job, some training, they turn right around and steal you blind.”

“How did you happen to hire her?” I asked, ignoring his references to “these people.”