Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 18 - Nicotine Kiss (26 page)

“Hang on to your teeth.” He threw the car into gear. Gravel sprayed.

J
eff Starzek laughed. “God, I love this.”

His enthusiasm seemed inappropriate. We were flying down a long grade with a flat section at the bottom where streetcar tracks had been torn up decades ago, with a sharper grade rising from that. The topography presented a distinct advantage to the heavier Detroit cruiser on our tail, which gobbled up yards out of the gap with each second; its momentum would match the Hurst’s acceleration on the climb. I hung on to the door handle and felt the siren yelping in my leg.

“City cops don’t know Clemson’s gone rogue,” I said through my teeth. “You should’ve ditched the car, not repainted it.”

“I broke the first rule: Don’t fall in love with your machine.” He didn’t sound contrite. We struck sparks off the frame at the base of the hill, straining our seat belts tight. He put his foot through the fire wall. The carburetor gulped air and we headed for open sky. Behind us the cruiser hit the flat with a bang and bore down on our rear bumper.

I expected Jeff to swing left onto Joseph Campau, splitting the enclosed suburb of Hamtramck and gaining ground on the
straightaway. He shot past it and took the square corner onto East Grand on two patches of tire no bigger than the palm of my hand.

“You know Detroit?” I asked.

“Does a Jew know Jerusalem?”

“You can’t lose him downtown.”

He said nothing, baring his teeth at the windshield.

We were nearly across Harper when he took a left, cutting the corner off the curb on the right side but not touching it with his tires; the world tilted thirty degrees, then righted itself with a report I felt in my teeth when our wheels touched down. I turned my head in time to see the cruiser slew around 360 in the middle of the intersection and come out of it with rubber smoking. It was no rookie at the wheel.

Another left on Mt. Elliott, two inches shy of a white Escalade waddling across from the other direction, and we powered past old Dodge Main, now a GM assembly plant. Jeff knew its history.

“I’m thinking Chrysler next time,” he said. “See how that new hemi handles dirt roads.”

The Escalade had stopped in the middle of the intersection, but the cruiser had looped around it and was coming on hard.

I said, “In your position I’d consider a paper route.”

When Mt. Elliott branched off to the right, we went straight on Conant, lefted again on Holbrook, and tore across Hamtramck. This was home territory to me, but when we left that major cross street for the neighborhoods I saw signs I’d never seen before. We slalomed among the drives and courts, avoiding the cul-de-sacs, for several minutes, losing ten miles an hour to the turns, but the cruiser was no longer in sight. I heard its siren, baying like a hound quartering a field.

“You live around here, don’t you?” Jeff asked.

“The garage is empty.” I directed him.

In my driveway I scrambled out to lift the door, forgetting my limp. He nearly clipped the bottom edge with his roof. The door thumped down and I heard the furious yelping pass by a street or two over.

Jeff got out, looking as if he’d just scored a good space in the lot at Ford Field.

“We can’t stay here,” I said. “Clemson knows where I live.”

He glanced around the windowless garage. “Does that door lock?”

It didn’t, but I took a screwdriver off the peg board near the side door and jammed it through a slot in the right track near the floor. I gave the door a test pull. It lifted two inches and stopped when the roller met the obstruction.

“I’ve got time for a drink,” he said.

“I thought you didn’t drink.”

“Only when I’m driving.”

We went into the kitchen. I filled two tumblers with ice, poured Scotch, and we sat facing each other in the breakfast nook.

“Nice house.” Jeff drank. “Rotten liquor.”

“It was a tough choice.” I drank. The stuff kicked like a kitten. My heart was still jumping two hundred to the minute. “Where to from here?”

He wore a green twill shirt and jeans, no overcoat. He patted the breast pocket. Paper rustled. I hadn’t seen him retrieve the envelope containing his fake driver’s license.

“They’ll be watching for you at Customs,” I said.

“They’ll be watching for the car. I know a guy has a heap he’ll be tickled pink to get rid of. Get what you can for the Hurst, if they don’t confiscate it; I’ll mail you the title. That should pay your hospital bill.”

“You know Windsor?”

“I know all the places where cigarettes are cheap. I’ve got some
cash there in a locker. You’d be surprised how much you can put aside when you don’t pay taxes or insurance. I can live a year there on the exchange rate. Longer, if there’s anything over there the politicians in Ottawa don’t want people to have. There’s thousands of miles of back road in the western territories.”

“You might not have to.”

He shook his head.

“You can’t take him, Amos. They won’t let you. They’ll just close ranks. With me out of reach, he’ll lose interest. Call it a draw. Paul won’t mind.”

“He’ll find Rose.”

He said nothing. His face said the same. He’d spent his adult life bluffing his way through Customs and traffic stops and the muscles had set into a bland mask.

“He’ll use her to get to you,” I said. “Me, too. We’re the only ones who can tie him to counterfeiting and murder.”

“He already got to you.” He drained his glass and rose. “Thanks for the company. I can’t remember the last time I had a passenger. I won’t thank you for the hospitality. I’ll send you a case of Canadian. The good stuff, not the grizzly sweat they export.”

“Don’t. I’m going on the wagon. Need a cab?”

“No. Not even Clemson will think to look for me on foot.”

After he left by the front door, I sat there and watched my ice cubes melt. I thought about Rose Canon, the woman who loved Jeff Starzek, and of all the women who loved the wrong men for the right reasons. One wrong was all it took to waste your time.

I emptied the glass, still without effect, and got up to wash it. I scooped Jeff’s off the table and chucked it into the trash can, hard enough to break it. I didn’t want to take the chance of drinking from it by mistake.

I
’d left without breakfast that morning, so I threw two eggs in a skillet, made toast, emptied and washed the coffeepot, and made a fresh batch, extra brawny. I wasn’t hungry, but I needed something to sit on top of the Scotch. It really was rotten stuff.

I ate without tasting and carried my second cup into the living room. Rose Canon’s telephone rang four times before she picked up. Little Jeffie was mad as hell about something, raising blisters on my ear. “Just a second,” Rose yelled. “I’ll put you on speaker.”

Her end of the conversation echoed after that. She stopped to sing to the baby in snatches, make cooing noises, jiggle it while her voice wobbled in response to my questions. Jeffie went on screaming.

“Heard from Oral?” I asked.

“He called this morning. We had a long talk. He’s coming to take me out to dinner Friday night, an honest-to-God date. He thinks we ought to go back and start over. Is that a good idea?”

“I’m way underqualified to answer that one. Maybe you should start by just enjoying the meal.”

“Is there any news about Jeff?”

“He’s okay. Still running.”

She jumped on it. “How do you know? Did you see him?”

“Not over the telephone. Agent Clemson call you yet?”

“No. You have to tell me about Jeff.”

“I’m on my way.” The baby was coming in loud and clear over the speaker. I had an idea. “Is there someplace you can go for a couple of hours today?”

“Shopping, but we don’t need anything. Why?”

“I want to set up a meeting with Clemson. I don’t think he’ll open up in my house or office, and I don’t trust any place he’d suggest. I wouldn’t ring you in, except if he doesn’t know all about you by now he will soon anyway.”

“Are you thinking of turning Jeff in?”

“No. Whatever he’s done or hasn’t done, I’m still carrying him on the books.”

“You did see him, didn’t you? Something happened between you. I raised Jeff. I know when someone isn’t telling me the whole story.”

“In person.”

There was a little gulp of silence. The baby had paused for breath.

“I suppose it won’t hurt to stock up,” Rose said. “When?”

“I’ll call back after I talk to Clemson.” I worked the plunger and dialed the agent’s cell number, which I knew now by heart. It rang three times and kicked me over to voice mail. I broke the connection again and tried his pager.

Two minutes later the telephone rang. “This better be good,” Clemson said. “We just went on orange alert. Someone wants to blow a hole in the middle of Martin Luther King Day.”

Something hummed in the background; tires on pavement. He was driving.

“Well, I can’t touch that,” I said. “I wanted to tell you I had a drink this morning with Jeff Starzek.”

The line crackled. A hand gripped the receiver tight. “Where?”

“My place, but he left.”

“You’re there now?”

“I’m just leaving. I can meet you in Oak Park.” I gave him the Canons’ address.

“What’s in Oak Park?”

“All the family Starzek has left.”

It was dangerous bait, and I almost didn’t use it. But he struck.

“Are you saying you’re coming through with your client?”

“How long will it take you to get there?”

I felt him back away. I’d sounded too eager. I sipped coffee to flatten my nerves.

“Is it about Starzek?” he asked.

“Only indirectly. I owe you twenty bucks.”

“Keep it. Be direct.”

I hesitated, then set the hook. “Operation Sebastian.”

Far away a bell rang. The humming slowed. I heard him pull over and coast to a stop. “Where’d you hear that name?”

“I want to give you back your arrow.” I hung up.

Oak Park had enjoyed a brief thaw while I was north, just long enough to melt the snow on the Canons’ hip roof before winter turned back and flash froze it into tyrannosaur fangs of icicle. A broad section broke loose when I slammed the taxi door and smashed the sleeping rosebushes flat. The only other vehicle on the street belonged to a plumber. Frozen and broken pipes are as much a part of the Michigan winter as hockey fights.

Rose was ready, dressed for the street in slacks, ankle boots, and a blue sweater that electrified her eyes and showed her collarbone,
a feature I’ve always approved of in women’s clothing. She was holding a tiny tomato-red snowsuit in one hand.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“I put on a tie.” I hung up my overcoat and pointed my cane toward one of the platform rockers in the living room. “That seat taken?”

“Take Oral’s. It’s the most comfortable in the house.”

I hadn’t come there to get comfortable. Aloud I said, “I don’t want to jinx you with Oral.” I wobbled over to the rocker and lowered myself into it. “I’ll talk while you finish getting ready. We don’t have much time.”

Jeffie lay in a convertible stroller near the door to the kitchen, red-faced from crying but asleep. He barely stirred as his mother got him into the snowsuit, a complicated operation performed with efficiency. I told her what had happened with Jeff. I left out Herbert Clemson’s connection with it all and Jeff’s nonreaction in the kitchen when I’d said what I’d said about Rose still being in danger. I didn’t know how she’d take it and I wanted her gone in time to make certain arrangements.

“How did he look? Has he been eating?” Her hands flew over snaps and zippers.

“You don’t have to worry about that. He’s the type that gets fat in the saddle, like Napoleon. He’s leaving the country. You won’t see him for a long time.”

“Well, I’m used to that. What’s going on, Mr. Walker? What kind of trouble is he in?”

“The murder kind. He’s set to take the fall for what happened to his brother.”

“He’s no murderer. You must know that by now.”

“I do. I know who killed Paul.”

She pulled a knit cap over the baby’s head and tucked him into
his blue blanket. She straightened and faced me. “Not Oral.” Her husky voice fell to a whisper.

“Not Oral. No one you’ve met.”

“Who?”

“That’s what the meeting with Clemson’s about. I’ll tell you when you get back from shopping.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

“No time.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it with a will. She got a silver all-weather coat off the hall tree, put it on, took gloves and a matching wool scarf from a pocket. Then she steered the stroller into the kitchen. I heard a door slam, a garage door opening on a lifter. I got up, moved the chair closer to the brushed-black console telephone on its little stand, sat, made a quick call, and rested the receiver on its cradle. I took the .38 out of its belt clip and tucked it out of sight between the seat cushion and the arm of the chair on the right side. Then I straightened out my aching leg and rested the cane across it with the crook in my lap.

It wasn’t until I focused my attention on the front door that I realized I hadn’t heard the garage door closing.

A door opened, not the one I was watching. Rose Canon came in from the kitchen, pushing the stroller with Jeffie in it still asleep. Herbert Clemson followed two paces behind.

I slid my hand down to my side and closed it on the revolver.

“If you come up with anything more than a handful of lint, I’ll blow a hole square through mother and child.” He showed me the slim Beretta pointed at Rose’s lower back.

I brought my hand up empty and laid it in my lap. Rose had stopped. Her gloved hands made tight fists on the stroller’s padded handle. “He was waiting for me in front of the garage. He said he was with Homeland Security.”

“He was.”

The former agent looked as if he hadn’t been out of his clothes since Port Sanilac. He had on the same turtleneck, felt-lined boots, and the parka he’d lent me to replace the overcoat I’d ruined crawling around under Cabin Twelve. His cultivated five o’clock shadow had begun to look like noon of the next day. Rose and I seemed to have come at the end of a long string of loose ends.