Sendoff for a Snitch (14 page)

“What about her?”

“She was there. She gave me a ride. She did want to take me to the hospital. But I talked her out of that. So she took me to her house.”

Kelly drew back. “You stayed at her house?”

“Yeah. And she gave me some of the clothes that he left behind.”

“I wondered where you got that nice jacket and new boots.”

“They used to belong to Sterling Radman. I don’t guess he’ll need them in the federal pen he’s headed to.”

Kelly was staring at me with her eyes narrowed. “You stayed at Mandy’s house overnight. Where did you sleep?”

We didn’t have an exclusive arrangement, Kelly and me. I would have been happy to, but Kelly didn’t want to commit. And between my uncertain future and her having to worry about the kids, I could understand. Who knew how long it might be before I was locked up again?

So why was she getting bent out of shape?

“On a couch,” I said reassuringly.

“I know you and she had some kind of dealings before Radman was arrested. Does Mandy…” Kelly sought for words to ask what she wanted to know.

“Some kind of dealings” had been Mandy wanting me to either kill her husband or recruit someone else to do it. But I knew what Kelly was getting at. “Does Mandy want to start something with me?” I asked.

“I guess that’s what I meant.”

“Nah. I think, since this whole thing with Radman and all, she’s done a lot of thinking. Probably with a therapist. Even if I was in her class—which I’m definitely not—I’m not the type she’s interested in.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s got a girlfriend. And they’re planning to get married.”

“Shhhh,” someone hissed at us.

We turned our attention to the TV, where the announcer was reading a list of things closed for the entire week. The schools, of course. Most businesses—including Quality Steel, our employer.

That wasn’t a surprise, but the short paychecks would hurt both of us.

Videos began playing on the screen, with the announcer describing the scenes.

The screen showed ice floes crowded around the supports of the bridge, threatening to knock some off the pilings. National Guard troops waving off traffic. The bloated bodies of several expensive Holstein dairy cows trapped with other debris in floodwaters. An electrical substation under water. Several emergency response vehicles, their flashing lights throwing a lurid glow over the scene, surrounding a stairwell outside a rundown building.

I froze.

The only known fatality so far in this disaster, the announcer intoned. And authorities were unsure whether it was a drowning or a body dumped in the flooded stairwell. The identity of the victim was being withheld until next of kin were notified.

If I was right that it was Aaron, it might be a while before they found his mother. But at least they were already looking.

I wondered how Benji was making out. As well as could be, I hoped, aware that he was probably in emergency foster care, a fate I had a fair amount of experience with in my younger days, and one I would not wish on anyone. A lot had gone wrong in his young life now, and with Aaron dead and his mother still away and unable to get back, things might get a lot worse for him before they got better.

The camera caught the ambulance driving away and the cop unwinding crime scene tape and attaching it to the lamppost.

The announcer said that the police wanted to question a “person of interest” in the case.

I had a feeling I knew who that person was. I hoped they didn’t have a picture to put up.

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Kelly.

The house was cold. We played board games around the dining room table, a candle supplementing the feeble light from the window, until our fingers got so stiff that Kelly sent the kids to get their gloves.

“I hope the pipes don’t freeze,” she said, pulling aside one of the front drapes to stare out the window at darkening sky. A few pinpricks of light showed in the distance. Nothing like the lights on an ordinary night in this comfortable residential section of town.

“Not likely.” I stepped up next to her and put my arm over her shoulder. She snuggled in close. “It’d have to be freezing out there, under thirty-two degrees. And we’d be getting snow, not rain.”

“I guess. Maybe I should get a kerosene heater.”

“You could. How often does this happen?”

“Power go out? Every once in a while.”

“All over town?”

She thought. “No. Usually, it’s just pretty localized, and they get it back up in a few hours. I can’t remember Quality Steel ever being shut down like this before. And I’ve worked there for over ten years.”

“Generators are expensive. You’d have to think about whether the expense was worth it, for just once in a while like this.”

Brianna came in, several books clutched in her mittened hands. “Can you read to us now, Jesse?” she asked.

I glanced at Kelly, who put a hand on the child’s head and smiled. Despite the cold, I felt a warmth in my chest. I loved it when she smiled like that.

“Sure,” she said. “Jesse can read to you. I’ll go upstairs and see if I can’t find some extra blankets and things. Once it gets all the way dark, we may as well go to bed. We won’t be able to see to do much else.”

The kids and I settled back into the nest we’d built on the couch, and I read to them until the light from the windows failed.

“Come on up and get in bed,” Kelly called. “It’s going to get colder as the night goes on.”

My breath quickened at the thought of snuggling down into Kelly’s soft bed. We’d keep plenty warm.

Kelly had found clean sheets for Brianna’s bed. The ones we’d hung up weren’t dripping anymore, but they certainly weren’t dry.

“Should I leave on my jacket and gloves?” Chris asked.

“If you want,” Kelly said, smoothing the bedding. “Definitely wear a hat to keep your head warm.”

After they both were tucked in with teddy bears and a tiny flashlight next to the beds, we went into Kelly’s room. It was too dark to see much. I stripped down to my long underwear. I was hoping they wouldn’t stay on too long.

Kelly went into the bathroom and came back wearing her long, fuzzy bathrobe. And socks. I was betting she didn’t have much on under the robe. She lay down.

I slipped into bed next to Kelly, pulling the heavy blankets over us. The bed was cold. That was okay—we had plenty of time to warm it up. She lay on her side, facing away from me. I snuggled into her back, burying my face in her long dark hair. Of course, there’d been no opportunity for showers, but she’d put some kind of scented lotion or powder on her neck. She still smelled of sweat and oil from the factory. And woman. I reached my arms around her, feeling her soft warmth, and pulled her closer. She turned her head, and her mouth reached for mine.

Her kiss had an alcoholic, but minty taste to it. Mouthwash. I wished I’d thought to use the mouthwash I knew she kept in the bathroom. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth.

I forgot about that as her tongue sought mine. My hands eased under the soft warmth of the robe. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it.

The door opened. “Mom?”

Kelly sighed and pulled away from me.

“What is it?”

Brianna said, “I can’t get warm.”

Chris was right behind her. “Neither can I.”

“Can we get in bed with you?”

“Well…”

I leaned back against the pillow. “It is cold. We’ll get other nights.”

“Okay. I guess,” Kelly said, shifting and gathering the robe around her.

Brianna climbed in next to Kelly, and Chris next to me. We pulled the blankets up around us. I’d heard something about people who slept this way all the time. They called it a “family bed” or something. I couldn’t say I wasn’t disappointed at the turn of events, but it was cozy. And I could see the satisfaction in it, lying so close to people I cared about.

I just wondered how they handled the whole sex aspect.

And I hoped Brianna wouldn’t wet the bed.

Chapter 13

W
hen I woke up, dim light shone through the window. Dawn. I lay there for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth of the soft bed. Kelly was snuggled up on one side of me, her breath coming in deep, regular sighs. Chris was on the other side, curled in a ball, his butt and feet pressed against my thigh.

Trying not to disturb anybody else, I lifted my head and looked over beyond Kelly. Brianna lay there, her tiny face relaxed more than I’d ever seen it when she was awake.

I glanced over at the nightstand. The digital alarm clock’s face was blank. The power hadn’t come on.

Silence except for the sound of the sleepers’ breathing. It took me a minute to realize what that meant. No drumming on the roof. It wasn’t raining!

Careful not to let too much of the decidedly cold air under the covers, I slipped out and climbed over Chris, then tucked the bedding around everyone again. I stood for a few seconds, just looking at the peaceful trio.

The chill cut that short, so I grabbed my clothes and went to the bathroom.

After I’d washed up as best I could in the icy water from the faucet, I reached for a towel to dry myself.

The ones that hung on the towel racks were all damp and cold. Not surprising. I opened the linen closet and took a clean one from the diminishing stack there. If nobody could get laundry done soon, we’d all have to rethink our definition of usably clean clothes and linens.

As I pulled it out, something tucked behind the stack fell over with a clunk. I looked closer.

A half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort.

Had Kelly lied to me about pouring out all the alcohol in the house? Or had she stashed bottles in so many places throughout the house that she’d forgotten about this one? And how many others were still hidden in various places?

Remembering the alcohol and mint on her breath as I’d kissed her last night, I looked in the medicine cabinet. Sure enough, a big bottle of mint mouthwash stood there. I took it down and sniffed it. It was mostly minty smelling, but there was a faint undertone of alcohol.

Didn’t alcoholics frequently use mouthwash to mask the smell of alcohol on their breath?

My gut twisted. I didn’t want to think that Kelly had lied to me. On the other hand, it would do no good to any of us if I became the classic enabler who wanted so much to believe what she said that I overlooked the obvious.

I left a note saying I was going out to check on my apartment. I addressed it to all three of them, since I was pretty sure only Chris could read well enough to make it out.

Outside, the rain had stopped, but the streets were full of debris and downed tree limbs. A utility truck with its lights flashing wound its way down the street and stopped next to a pole at the corner. Maybe Kelly would have her power back on soon.

How long before the city was operational again?

The time I had to try to figure out anything useful about Aaron’s death might be very limited.

If I could find out who else might have had a beef with Aaron, I would have something to tell the detectives, who would start looking for me in earnest as soon as the chief of police was satisfied that most of the city was safe and secure.

Banjo might have found out something, and I’d told Banjo I’d stop by the abandoned warehouse where he was staying with some of the Predators. I turned in that direction. My apartment could wait.

Despite my best efforts to keep my distance, I’d been inextricably mixed up with the Predators when one of them had attacked Kelly. At first, the cops were sure it had been me. Old Buckles, who’d been out on parole and staying at Kelly’s place, hadn’t been quite so sure I’d been the attacker, but he’d been open to the possibility. Turned out it was a biker named Razorback, but he was dead now.

I’d had a couple of run-ins with Funky Joe, but they’d been minor and not worth the trouble it would cause the gang to track me down to settle it. But what would they do if I showed up in their midst? Offer me a beer, which I’d better take, and answer a few questions about Aaron? Tell me to get lost and lock the door? Beat me senseless and stomp me to death, then toss my body somewhere it was not likely to be found?

Assuming they didn’t decide to implement the third option, I didn’t see I had much to lose.

I heard the whine of chainsaws, but didn’t see many people. A patrol car passed going in one direction, a cherry picker with an out-of-state logo on the door going the other way. The streets were a mess. In the lower areas, and wherever there was a depression in the ground, dirty water stood. If the storm drains were working at all, it was sluggishly, and water pooled around their grates.

The alley that led to the warehouse climbed up from a flooded street. Water dripped from the roof and ran down a gutter on the side of the alley. The rusted gate stood partially open. I eased through it.

A guard shack stood next to the entrance to the truck yard. A pole barrier blocked the entry effectively for any vehicles, but I was on foot. I stepped around it.

Someone was in the shack. I went up to talk to him, but he was asleep, his gray bandana slipping over one of his eyes. His head leaned back against the wall. Empty beer cans were scattered on the floor. A few unopened ones sat on the desk. Yet another, this one open and tipped on its side, lay next to the man’s hand.

The door hung half-closed. I stuck my head in. The small space smelled of stale beer and urine. The guy’s dark blue jeans had a darker stain in the front. I wrinkled my nose.

I really didn’t want to touch him, so I said, “Hey, dude.”

He didn’t stir.

I stepped inside. The rank odor was worse. I put a light finger on his cheek. He was warm, so he was probably still alive. “Hey, dude,” I said again.

He lifted his hand to swat mine away from him. “Go ’way.”

So he definitely was still alive.

I backed out of the shack and headed up to the main warehouse.

It couldn’t have been used for its intended purpose for a good long time. The concrete truck yard was cracked and uneven, and some of the weeds growing through the cracks were the size of small trees. The edges of the loading bays were crumbling. Trash, now very wet trash, lay everywhere. A set of stairs with a crooked railing ran up to an empty doorframe on one end of the dock. I went up the stairs and into the warehouse.

If it had ever had lights, they weren’t on now. It was a good bet that the electric bill hadn’t been paid for months, if not years, and somebody had probably jerry-rigged a connection from a neighbor’s hookup to supply minimal electricity.

Right now, though, nobody around here had access to electricity to steal. And this desolate neighborhood would likely be one of the last to see it restored.

I stood for a few minutes, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. It didn’t smell quite as bad as the guard shack had, but the odor of stale beer and marijuana mingled with a whiff of an organic decaying odor. I wondered if something had died in there and was rotting in a corner.

A few men were stretched out on packing crates and decrepit tables, sleeping. It was cold and dank in there, and I shivered. A fire in a thirty-gallon drum smoldered in the center of the room. It had provided a bit of heat, but now, no one was awake to feed it. They were all passed out drunk or high and beyond caring much about the temperature. Looked like they’d had a party the last night, flood or no flood.

Water dripped down a wall and ran across the stained floor and out under the overhead doors of the truck bay.

In stark contrast to the squalor all around, a gaggle of well-kept choppers rested on their kickstands against the back wall. They were all bright colors and polished chrome, their extended handlebars and custom-painted gas tanks catching what light was available in a burst of jeweled reflections.

I went across the open space to an office in the back. For the first time, I heard voices.

There was no door. I knocked on the doorframe.

A beefy biker looked up sharply, his eyes hidden behind dark shades. I wondered how he could see anything at all.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled, yanking a smoldering blunt from his mouth. “And how the hell did you get in here?”

Banjo unwound himself from an old office chair and stood up. “Jesse Damon,” he told the others. “Tigerman, I know him. From the big house. Old Buckles knows him, too.”

Tigerman leaned back in his decrepit office chair. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Met him when I did my first bit at the big house. Got to know him pretty well.”

“Yer cell buddy or something?”

“Eventually. But he saved my bacon when I was a stupid hopper, right off the bus from diagnostics.”

Tigerman snorted. “How the hell did he do that?”

“I got myself into a tight spot in the yard first day. Somebody asked me what set I was with, since I was a loner back then, before I hooked up with any of you guys. Like to beat the crap out of me there and then.”

A cloud of pungent smoke drifted out of Tigerman’s mouth and nostrils. He eyed the blunt again and said, “And?”

“I was just a dumb kid. Jesse, here, he stepped up and said, ‘He’s with my set. You wanna make something of it?’ The other guys just eyed me and drifted off.”

“What set are you with?” The first guy waved his blunt toward me. “Deadmen Inc.?”

I shook my head. “I keep to myself. No gangs.”

“Then why the hell did they back off?”

Banjo shrugged. “I was never quite sure. It was either everybody knew he was totally crazy, or he had the street cred, I guess.”

I had to laugh. “Must have been crazy. It sure weren’t no street cred. I’d been off the street for years by then.”

Tigerman grinned. “Had a rep inside, though, huh? Old head?”

“I sure was an old head by that time.”

Banjo grinned. “We got assigned to the same cell a little while later. I paid off the tier clerk, so he arranged it. Jesse didn’t care much one way or the other. But all the time we spent in the same cell, I never did ask you, Jesse? Why’d you stick your neck out and step in like that? You didn’t owe me, and you didn’t know me.”

It was my turn to shrug. “You was a scared new kid. I remember what it was like. Guys sizing you up when you walk by, making clucking noises. Fresh chicken. Didn’t want to see them think you had to stand all by your lonesome. No point letting them take advantage of you if I could head it off.”

“Before I got locked up, I thought I was tough stuff.”

“Yeah.” A strand of wiry hair had escaped from my ponytail. I brushed it off my face. “We all think that. But we learn. And some of us remember.”

Tigerman lumbered to his feet and held out his hand.

His grimy paw completely engulfed my hand.

One of the other guys stood unsteadily and put out his hand. “Animal here,” he said.

Tigerman offered me the blunt.

I said, “No, thanks. You know how long that stuff stays in your system?”

“So? The longer the better.”

“I got to see my PO this week. He can piss me if he wants. I can’t afford to test positive.”

“What, you afraid of getting locked up again?”

“You’d best believe that.”

“It ain’t so bad. I been locked up lots of times.”

“And I only been locked up once. For twenty years. I’m looking at almost another twenty backup time.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Must have been a serious charge.”

He was fishing. I wasn’t about to satisfy his curiosity. I narrowed my eyes and stared into his dark glasses. I said, “It was. I try to keep my nose clean. At least until I’m off supervision.”

He scratched himself. “Then what the hell are you doing here? Most of us are convicted felons. You still under supervision, you could get violated for being here.”

He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. “You know a dude named Aaron? Aaron Stenski?”

“And if I did?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m trying to figure out what he’s been up to.”

“What d’ya mean?”

Might as well level with them all, at least to a certain extent. “I know he was boosting cars and running errands for the chop shop some of you guys was running.”

“Whoa.” Tigerman backed up a step. “I sure wasn’t part of nothing like that.”

Banjo reached for the blunt. “Old Buckles told me all about Aaron. They started calling him Gopher. Buckles says he’s a snitch.” He inhaled deeply.

Tigerman laughed. “Gopher. I like that. ’Cause he was always running errands?”

The pungent smoke streamed from Banjo’s nostrils. Then he said, “Yeah. Buckles said he’d ‘go fer’ anything you sent him to do.”

Laughing again, Tigerman took the blunt back for another drag, then offered it to me again. I shook my head, and he handed it to Banjo.

Banjo rolled it between his fingers. “Buckles says he thinks maybe Aaron set him up, with this newspaper lady. It was pictures she took of him out partying that got his paroled revoked. I’m supposed to look into it and maybe settle the score.”

I looked at Tigerman. “So you guys don’t know much about what he’s been up to?”

“Didn’t say that. Some of the guys we used were careless, but that guy Aaron is pretty useful. And Buckles is right. He is a snitch.”

“You sure?” I noticed they were using the present tense. Either they didn’t know Aaron was dead, or they were pretty good at this.

“Yeah. He’s pretty dumb.” Tigerman took the blunt. “He’ll believe anything he hears if he thinks you aren’t talking to him. So he’s a great way to send stuff to the cops that you want them to hear, but can’t tell them outright.”

“You mean like stuff that’s going on that you want stopped?” I shook my head when he offered it to me again.

“Some of that,” he said, looking critically at the burning end. “But mostly just, what do they call ’em, red berries? Like when you send ’em off in the wrong direction?”

“Red herrings?” I asked.

“Maybe. Like, you want a clear road for a midnight run, so you talk about planning a big heist at a truck stop in the opposite direction. So this guy Aaron, he sneaks back and snitches, only the info he’s got is wrong. Then they’re keeping an eye on the truck stop, not where you want to go.”

“Good technique if you can make it work,” Banjo said. “But how many times can you pull that?”

Tigerman grinned, showing broken and blackened teeth. “Quite a bit, when you come right down to it. Next time the snitch is around, you talk about how you had to call off the gig cause there were so many cops out on the road in the area. That gets them thinking that maybe they weren’t careful enough, or at least they headed it off, so they’re waiting for the next time Aaron brings them a plan.”

“What kind of heists do you make Aaron think you’re trying to pull?” I asked.

“Mostly hijackings. You know, semis with loads of computers or TVs. Then you not only got the truck to sell, you got the cargo, too. Used to be big business.” He shook his head. “But we stopped doing much of that a while ago.”

“Why?”

“Too dangerous. They’ve infiltrated the buyers. Sting operations and such.”

“How about the chop shop?” I asked.

“That was just dumb.” Tigerman leaned back. “A couple of the younger guys, they set that up. I mean, we was doing okay taking cars and driving them straight down to the port. They’d be loaded quick on a ship and be off to Africa or South America, a lot of the time before the owner even reported them missing. Especially if you took them from long-term parking at the airport.”

“Old Buckles said Aaron was looking at luxury cars around here,” Banjo said.

“Yeah.” Tigerman tried to take another toke, but the blunt had gone out. He peered at the end. “And that was stupid. You never piss in your own backyard. Even if it’s easier.”

“Then why were they doing that?” I asked.