Prudence Couldn't Swim (19 page)

Red Eye summoned his most gravelly WWE voice to order Jeffcoat onto the floor. The pantless CEO crawled off the sofa and lay down on his back on the hardwood floor.

“Not on your back, fool,” said Red Eye. “Roll over.”

Jeffcoat moved onto his stomach. Red Eye tucked his pistol into his belt and pulled a pair of handcuffs out of the leather suitcase.

“Definitely don't want to scratch our boy's Rolex,” Red Eye reminded me as he moved in to put the cuffs on Jeffcoat. Once they were in place, Red Eye peeled off the watch and put it on.

“Quarter past seven,” he said, admiring the watch face.

I kept my Walther pointed at Jeffcoat's head. Despite our surprise appearance, Jeffcoat had regained his calm, save for the telltale dribble of sweat on his upper lip.

Red Eye brought out the duct tape. Initially I'd been against it but we'd had long talks the night before. Red Eye's persistence won out.

He'd also talked about swords, piano wire, electrical cable, and electric drills. My AK-47 fantasies had faded slightly so I managed to limit his toolbox to the steam iron and the curling iron.

“Mr. Jeffcoat,” said Red Eye, “we can do this the hard way or the easy way.”

“Do what?” Jeffcoat asked.

“You tell us everything you know about the death of Prudence,” said Red Eye, “that's all.”

“And about Peter Margolis,” I added.

Red Eye reached into the backpack, pulled out the steam iron and plugged it into the wall.

“This is the hard way,” said Red Eye holding up the iron. “I press your cheek like it's a Van Heusen. I'd hate to have to do that.”

“I've told you everything I know already,” said Jeffcoat.

“I've also got a curling iron,” said Red Eye. “You've probably never felt one of those.”

“I don't have anything else to tell you,” said Jeffcoat.

“Tie him up with the tape,” Red Eye told me. “And get her out of here” he added pointing to Olga. She didn't need perfect fluency in English to understand where this was headed. She'd already seen too much, at least enough to know Red Eye wouldn't be adding creases to Jeffcoat's slacks with that iron.

Olga scrambled to get on her high heels. I gave her an envelope with the $1,200 in it, thanked her, and she was on her way. I wondered what chance there was that she'd never tell anyone about this, like we'd agreed.

Red Eye plunked Jeffcoat down in a wooden chair. I wrapped the duct tape around him to make sure he didn't go anywhere. His gentlemanly forehead was suddenly enveloped in sweat but he maintained his ignorance about Prudence's death.

“And I suppose you still don't know anything about strange middle-of-the-night events at my house either” I said. He went silent.

“Don't worry,” I told him, “we've got copies of all those tapes.”

“If you did,” he said, “we wouldn't be here.” Part of the power of any successful businessman is finding the hole in your counterpart's argument. Jeffcoat had found ours in about ten minutes. I hated him for it. Red Eye's approach was winning me over.

“You've played your hand,” he said, “now you've got nothing on me. I didn't kill that girl but I couldn't leave you with those tapes. You could have blackmailed me for the rest of my life.”

The iron started to make that tapping sound. I wanted to put it
right in the middle of Jeffcoat's face. Where me and Red Eye grew up, we used to fantasize about moments where we had clean-faced pretty boys like Jeffcoat begging for mercy. I thought I'd moved beyond those boyhood fantasies but I had to admit that this was way better than stealing lunch money.

“Let's stop this game before it gets out of hand,” Jeffcoat added. “You don't want to kill me, and you don't want me for an enemy. Even two morons like you aren't that stupid.”

I hated a smartass in a $2,500 Armani suit without his pants talking tough. Though the duct tape was wrapped around him, he had us tied in knots. The steam iron suddenly didn't seem like such a hot idea.

“If you didn't murder her,” said Red Eye, “then who did?”

“How would I know? I wasn't the only man she ever climbed into bed with. She was a horny little slut.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I screamed. “Don't come with any of your high morals. You're a cheap whore yourself. Olga lit your dick up easier than turning on the Christmas tree lights.” I wanted to knock him and his silk-tie ass across the room. He'd probably never been hit in his life.

Suddenly Red Eye looked scared.

“Let's talk, Cal,” he said, motioning me out the front door. “Our boy's not going anywhere.”

We stood in the hall and closed the front door halfway—enough to keep an eye on Jeffcoat.

“We're backed into a corner now,” Red Eye whispered. “We've got nothing on him. The burglary at your house wasn't even reported.”

“But he could be a killer,” I said.

“We played our hand too late,” said Red Eye. “If you want to ice him, we can. But we're gone. Remember, the cops already know about that lottery caper. We'll be prime suspects. A slam dunk for the DA. Plus the broad will rat in a heartbeat.”

I wondered why I'd let Red Eye talk me into this heavy-handed session in the first place. Or maybe I talked him into it. As if he needed persuading. My memory was fading fast, along with my buzz.

I looked in on Jeffcoat. He still had that pompous air. On a gut level, killing him had its appeal. But I wasn't crazed enough to ignore what a bad idea it was. Not yet.

“Don't bother trying to get loose,” I hollered at him. “Just be patient. We've got it all under control.”

“With my fate in the hands of two geniuses, why should I worry?” he replied.

I charged back into the apartment, grabbed the duct tape and slapped three pieces around his mouth.

“Easy, Cal,” Red Eye warned. With him playing the calm voice of reason in our partnership, we were entering very deep waters.

Jeffcoat mumbled through the tape. It sounded like something about not being able to breathe.

“Use your fuckin' nose,” I said.

I toyed with spitting in his face but I left it there. Confusion, anger, and heartache were proving to be a lethal cocktail for me. Not to mention a shot of sheer foolishness.

Red Eye and I went back out into the hall and talked for another five minutes. We could have rattled on for hours and it wouldn't unravel this mess. I thought I was being righteous finding the murderer of my wife. Now it was all coming back on me. It wasn't Prudence's killer or this lowlife Jeffcoat who would end up in prison here. It was me and Red Eye. There's no justice for an ex-con finally trying to do the right thing. At least I had one card left to play. I brought out the list of names, explained to Red Eye what I knew about Peter Margolis from his widow.

“So we tell him I know about his settlement with Margolis. I figure he's been doing the same thing with these other people. Taking their money and not paying it into their insurance.”

“We can't give him the whole list just yet,” said Red Eye. “Always keep something back for a rainy day.”

“Feels like it's pouring pretty hard right now to me and we got no umbrellas.”

“This is just a sprinkle,” he said. “We may be in the middle of a hurricane before this is over.”

“Yeah, the one called Hurricane Three Strikes and You're Out.” We loosened Jeffcoat's wraps and barked at him a lot about Peter Margolis.

Then I rattled off more names from the list: Sean Cutler, Ralph Jacobson, Earl Sadlowski. Jeffcoat's arrogance deflated a little each time I mentioned a new person.

“You've taken these people's money,” I said. “Their life savings, their futures.”

His eyes suddenly got real big. He didn't even try to mumble a reply.

“Sometimes getting caught with your pants down hurts more than a hot iron on the cheek,” I said. For the moment, our business with Jeffcoat was over.

Red Eye put his hand in front of Jeffcoat's face, rolled it into a tight ball, then promised him that the next time the gonads of a great financial adviser would be inside that fist if Jeffcoat said anything to anyone about “our little night on the town together.” I peeled off most of the duct tape, just leaving enough so it would take a few minutes for him to get loose.

Red Eye gathered up all our torture paraphernalia and put it back in the bag. We just might be pulling off a clean getaway. I was glad we hadn't used that iron.

“Don't contact anyone or go outside for half an hour,” I said. “If the police find out about this, I've got lots more names where those three came from.” At least this man who loathed ineffective business practices so thoroughly had learned to lie on his stomach instead of his back. Life is full of important lessons.

We had enough on Jeffcoat to keep him off our backs. The problem was, after all that drama, we weren't any closer to knowing who killed Prudence.

J
ust as I got to sleep after our night out with Jeffcoat, someone banged on the front door.

“Police, open up.” The voice was deep, unfamiliar. I couldn't believe it. Jeffcoat had already blabbed.

I peeked in on Red Eye before I answered the door. He was wide awake, chambering a round into a Glock under his pillow.

“Get in the closet,” I said.

He climbed down gingerly, pulled all the blankets, sheets and pillows off the bed and stuffed himself inside the closet, Glock and all.

“Winter, we've got a warrant for your arrest. Open the door or we're coming in.” This was a different voice, one I recognized. Officer Carter. Something was wrong here. The Oakland Police didn't announce themselves. I tiptoed over to the door and checked the peephole. Carter and a short, well-built Hispanic stood alone on the front porch. More weirdness. The OPD came through your door in numbers, not in pairs. Overkill was the name of their game, even more so when dealing with ex-cons.

“Let me get dressed,” I said.

“Later for that,” Carter said, “open up now.”

At least I sleep in boxers when I'm alone in the bed. As soon as I opened the door Carter's hand was in the middle of my chest driving me backwards until I stumbled and fell, not more than five feet from where Prudence had laid on the carpet. I hoped I wouldn't end up in the same state. They say history has a way of repeating itself. At least I could swim a little bit.

“Hands behind your back,” Carter shouted, “you know the drill.”

His heftily muscled partner had a big black automatic trained on my forehead.

I rolled over and Carter put on the plastic cuffs. If experience was anything to go by, I'd probably lose the feeling in my hands after a few minutes. Lots of fond memories were coming back.

The two pulled me to my feet and read me my rights. I was under arrest for obstruction of justice—helping people enter the country illegally. I had no idea where this came from. Could have been Olga, but if this had to do with immigration I expected the Feds. At this point, though, jurisdiction questions wouldn't help. It wasn't like I had a choice. Didn't matter that much anyway. The locals gave you less time but the Feds served better food. Some Fed joints even had free soda machines.

Carter's partner stuck his head in the door of the second bedroom. All he saw was an empty bed. And I'd wondered why Red Eye took all the blankets with him. Sometimes I didn't give him the credit he deserved.

Middle of the night isn't my favorite time to be arrested. The holding cells are always filled with the nightly cohort of drunks and defeated street brawlers soothing their wounds.

I had to climb over a guy who called himself “Crazy Jerry,” just to get myself a little piece of plank bench to sit on. Jerry boasted that this was his “golden anniversary”—his fiftieth drunk and disorderly arrest. I hoped he wouldn't piss in his pants but the stains on his jeans didn't suggest the odds were in my favor.

I sat there in my boxers until some Skinhead offered me a t-shirt. I didn't like his politics but I was freezing my ass off so I took the shirt. Three hours later, just after dawn, our sack “breakfast” arrived—balo-ney sandwich, a mustard pack, an apple, a pack of cheese crackers and a half pint of warm nonfat milk produced in a prison farm near Fresno. I finished it all off in five minutes. It took them a whole day to give me a picture ID, have some nurse ask me if I heard voices and get my county issue clothes—an orange jumpsuit, a T-shirt and the black canvas shoes that we call “Jap flaps.” It had been several years since I'd had the pleasure of looking down at my leg and seeing the word “prisoner” in six-inch black letters.

When I got to court the following afternoon, the DA said I was a notorious trafficker who had served federal time.

“He's a definite flight risk, your honor,” he added. “The state opposes bail.”

Justin, my youthful public defender who had introduced himself to me about three minutes before the hearing, leaned over to me and asked what I had to say in reply. After our conversation, Justin managed to point out that I was a “homeowner and lifelong resident of Oakland.”

“Except for his time in federal prison,” the judge interjected.

“Yes, your honor,” Justin said, “but that was more than a decade ago.”

The judge, a man in his fifties with a brown mustache and a horseshoe hairstyle, asked Justin various questions about my employment and other sources of income. Justin and I had more little conferences. I told him about my transport business and several other ventures involving “printing and publishing.” There were grains of truth imbedded in the information I supplied but I wasn't ready to give him the whole picture. What was I supposed to do, say I did matchmaking for crackpots in Idaho looking for desperate young Filipina women? The fact that I owned two trucks didn't leave the judge overwhelmingly impressed. I didn't mention they were sitting in a wrecking yard being sold for spare parts.