The Midnight Man (20 page)

“It also bolsters their motive for getting rid of Deak and his sister,” the sergeant pointed out. “Too much talk.”

His superior tapped the edge of the sheet against his palm. “Shut the door.”

It had been left partly open to allow a cross-draft between the open window and the almost empty squad room. The humidity was thick for this time of the morning, even for Michigan, even for summer. I went over and secured it.

“The mayor’s black,” John said. “What do they stand to gain by
his
death?”

“Pandemonium. These groups thrive on it.” I poked what was left of my cigarette through the grille. The glowing tip fell and fell and was extinguished in darkness. “Remember the riots after Martin Luther King was killed? The Black Panthers doubled their ranks that night. Why do you think the PLO and the IRA and the rest of the alphabet plant bombs in public places? Out of hate, sure, but also because they like to see authority crumble and the bureaucrats scrambling like ants. Then there’s publicity, and the applause of their peers. One thing all terrorists have in common is vanity. This is their chance to put their cause on the map.”

“Which is?” Alderdyce waited.

“Anarchy, pure and simple. The total breakdown of the white capitalist system, if only for a night.”

“Regular answer man, aren’t you?”

“It’s a gift,” I snarled. “All I need is someone to tell me where to go and what to look for when I get there.”

“So why Smith? Why not someone who’s not wanted, with more freedom to move around?”

“That’s easy,” said the sergeant. “Of all of them, he’s the only one with nothing to lose.”

I nodded. “We had this conversation before, remember?

Keep in mind that they view established authority as a stacked deck. The way they see it, Smith has the choice of life imprisonment or running and hiding for the rest of his days, which are numbered at best. All the successful assassinations of the past hundred years have ended in the assassin’s death or capture. He might as well do it as not.”

“Okay, let’s say I buy it.” John tapped the sheet some more. “Why should he go ahead with it now, with the rest of them dead? I’m going on the assumption this whole thing was their idea, not his. He didn’t look all that happy when they busted him out. Maybe he’ll just powder.”

“Good point, except that they’re not all dead,” I reminded him. “Even if the three who died with Laura Gaye turned out to be part of the bunch that walked all over me at the commune, that leaves at least two unaccounted for, with Treadaway in custody. Ridder and the woman weren’t with them that night.”

“You’re sure there were six?”

“At least. I can take five.”

Hornet made a rude noise. I rose above it.

“I’m not saying the whole thing doesn’t leak,” I admitted.

“Even you wouldn’t try to get away with that.” Alderdyce glanced at his subordinate. “You got anything to contribute?”

“I think it stinks.”

I said, “That’s just that white gunk on your face.”

“How’d you like me to spoil yours?” The rash ointment stood out starkly against his flush.

“I’m not sure. What’s it like?”

He jacked himself up to his full height, his fists down at his sides. “Anytime, brother. Any time.”

“Ding ding,” John said. “Back to your neutral corners.”

The room fell silent. Alderdyce scowled at the pictures some more. His face and bearing betrayed none of the exhaustion I’d noted back at my place, but I couldn’t decide if that was iron determination or the lousy light in the office. He turned to the sergeant.

“Call the jail. Get Felix Treadaway up here now.”

The contact sheet didn’t break him right away. That never happens outside of Perry Mason reruns. Alderdyce produced it after a quarter-hour of reconnaissance over old ground, and though it jarred him visibly, Treadaway clung to his stoic silence until Hornet, the bad guy, threatened to stick him with the murders of Deak and Tallulah Ridder. It wasn’t the first time that had been suggested, but coming on top of charges of attempted murder
and
conspiracy to commit, it opened a fissure wide enough for the two dicks to leap in with both feet and crowbars.

“When’s it going down, Felix?” probed the lieutenant.

The suspect avoided his gaze. The lumps and bruises I’d lent him stuck out in the harsh light of the interrogation room and made him look deformed. The Elephant Man, squirming on the grill. Sweat rolled off the end of his smashed nose and darkened the blue cotton shirt of his jail uniform. That in itself meant nothing. We were all in our shirtsleeves and sweating freely. The room had no window and the door was closed. There were a long yellow oak table scalloped around the edges with cigarette burns, and one chair, in which Treadaway was sitting. Nothing else, not even a lawyer. He didn’t trust them.

“Speak up, schmuck! I’m hard of hearing.” In contrast to his superior’s soothing tones, Hornet’s words rang off the walls like cherry bombs hurled at an oil tank. Treadaway flinched before them. So did I, and they weren’t even directed at me.

It went on like that for a while. I watched, fascinated. Not that I hadn’t seen it more times than I cared to record in my diary. It had even been used on me. But I was always amazed when it appeared to be working. It was older than all of us put together; and I guessed that was why.

At length a signal passed between the cops, unseen by their guest. As he approached the man in the chair, Hornet appeared to inflate himself, and I understood then his choice as heavy, no pun intended. Without the maroon coat he looked enormous, a garage door in a white shirt with the cuffs turned back and size 52 trousers. His loosened tie barely reached his sternum after the hike around his neck. He filled the room.

“They’re all dead, sucker.” His voice was harsh but not loud. His face was so close to Treadaway’s that spittle flecked the latter’s features. “Laura Gaye. Deak Ridder. Quincey Flagg. Tommy Jack Dupuis. Earl Southwaite. The whole fucking Bagley bunch, dead. They’re barking in hell and you’re left up here, smeared with their shit. They’re shitting on you all the way from the Great Beyond. Ain’t that a hoot?”

Treadaway jerked in his seat as if struck. He goggled at the sergeant. Then his puffed lips spread in a nasty grin. “Sure, they’re all dead,” he said slowly. “And I’m Pat fucking Boone. What you want me to sing, ‘April Love’?” But the reference to the house on Bagley had shaken him, as had the roll call.

“You’ll sing, monkey-face. Where you think we got those pictures of the mayor, wiseass?”

“Some carnival booth, I expect.”

Alderdyce said, “Get it.”

Reluctantly, Hornet took his face away from the suspect’s and went out through the soundproofed door The room seemed a lot larger without him. We listened to ourselves breathing and admired the walls. They were soaked deep in sweat and old fear and by now must have been accustomed to being stared at.

He came back carrying a drab green folder under one arm. From it he drew a thick sheaf of color snapshots, removed the rubber band from around it, and scattered them across the table in front of Treadaway. “I suppose those came from the same booth.”

I came away from the wall for a better look. They had been taken with a cheap instant camera, the kind some cops carry around so that they have something to refer to later while waiting for the official photos to be processed. The green from the emulsion had seeped into the faces as in a Renaissance painting, but it didn’t make them look any less dead. Each body had been photographed several times from different angles: sitting in a chair with head tilted back; slumped over a table in the middle of a brown stain; stretched out on a buckled carpet with one arm flung up in a flamenco-like gesture. The flash obliterated the shadows and spared nothing.

It didn’t look like Shakespearean tragedy. The blood was brackish brown, not scarlet, and the wounds looked big enough to drop a bucket through. The woman on the floor didn’t have a lower jaw. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just real. Treadaway stared at the pictures a long time without expression. Then without warning he threw up all over them.

“Son of a bitch!” snarled the sergeant, as the acrid odor filled the close room. He tore open the door and leaned out. “Somebody get a towel!”

Five minutes later, Hornet folded the mess, pictures and all, into a frayed rag, stepped out into the squad room, and came back after ten seconds empty-handed. His face was frozen in an expression of disgust.

“Anyone ever tell you you’d make a hell of a nurse’s aide?” I asked him.

“Fuck off, wiseass.”

“Just cheering you up.”

He stood over the suspect, who despite his build had managed to look wan. His face was gray and he was perspiring more than ever.

“That ain’t all of them either,” Hornet pointed out. “Tommy Jack made a stop at the hospital on his way to the morgue.”

“Smith?” The depth was gone from Treadaway’s voice. He was still gaping at the table where the photographs had lain. It was shiny where the sergeant had wiped it clean of vomit, leaving the original dust everywhere else.

“He’s still kicking, but not for long. We got you.” He thumped a finger against the suspect’s chest hard enough to hurt.

“The conspiracy charge alone can get you life,” said Alderdyce, leaning against the door with his hands in his pockets. “The two murders will sink any chance of parole for a long, long time. We don’t want that, Felix. Your war record by itself separates you from these scuzzes you’ve been hanging out with. They’re dry bones. What do you owe Alonzo Smith? What’ve you got against the mayor?”

“You offering a deal?” It was barely audible. He seemed too weak to lift even his eyes.

“No fix, if that’s what you mean. But we’ll tell the judge you went along. That swings a certain amount of weight in this kind of case.”

“Pretty thin.”

“You want a guarantee, buy a toaster.”

There was a long stretch of nothing. The room was a steambath. My eyes stung from the salt, but I didn’t want to upset things by mopping my forehead. We were at the eighteenth hole, waiting for the putt to sink.

“The Afro-American festival,” Treadaway said then. “Hart Plaza.”

The detectives looked at each other.

“The mayor’s due there Saturday,” said Hornet.

Outside, Thursday’s sun was just breaking the horizon.

“Don’t think you got away with it,” Alderdyce said as we emerged from the Wayne County Morgue an hour and a half later. The sun was pounding the sidewalks on Brush, a welcome sight after the artificial lighting on the waxed floors and waxy corpses inside.

I stared at him innocently. He broke up.

“You do the worst Freddie Bartholomew I ever saw.” He laughed again. An elderly couple hobbling past looked at him strangely and went on, watching their feet. God knows what they thought. Not a lot of mirth is heard in the vicinity.

“Feel better?” I asked, when it was over.

“You don’t know.” He massaged his eyes vigorously with thumb and forefinger.

“I just got through placing two of your D.B.’s at that gymnasium on McDougall, on top of helping expose the kind of plot a promotion-happy cop dreams of. I didn’t expect thanks, but I wasn’t counting on a kick in the pockets either.”

“Poor Amos,” he said. “Got his feelings hurt.”

“You son of a bitch.” I put out a hand.

He grasped it, grinning. “Let’s go over to your place and talk to Bassett.”

“Thanks, I’ve seen your act.” I got out my ring and worked off the house key. “Here. Leave it under the mat when you’re through. And I’m not giving you permission to search the place, so keep your hands out of my underwear drawer. I’ve got errands to run.”

For a moment he looked as if he wanted his handshake back. “You’re not still sitting on something.”

‘I’m tired of sitting, John.”

“Nix on the mayor,” he warned. “He’s our only chance of flushing out Smith.”

“Just because I’ve got a lot of smart mouth doesn’t mean I can’t control it.”

It must have come out pretty sharp, because he backed off. He rubbed his eyes again. The bright sunlight found the sags and creases in his face. We were about the same age, which worried me. “I know, I know. I’m getting so I can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys anymore.”

“You didn’t seem to have any trouble in the interrogation room,” I said.

“Go build a birdhouse.” We parted.

T
HE LOBBY OF THE
Detroit
News
building, erected at a time when edifices were designed to impress, not intimidate, was cool and almost deserted at that time of the morning. I felt a physical shock passing from the blinding heat of West Lafayette into the muted interior, where a female security guard or something asked me to wait while she called up Barry Stackpole’s office to make sure I wasn’t an anarchist and was therefore to be trusted with the elevator. That done, she handed me a visitor’s tag to hang on the outside of my pocket. I stuck it inside. I’m not luggage.

Barry’s floor was a rabbit warren of partitioned cubicles like the toilet stalls in a public lavatory, with men and women scurrying along twisting aisles paved with discarded newsprint. Typewriters rattled. Video terminals peeped. Somewhere an air conditioner hummed discreetly. A radio droned last night’s baseball scores to the accompaniment of an amateur gambler’s cursing. Nobody seemed bothered by the fact that I wasn’t wearing my tag.

I found Barry seated behind the desk in his cubbyhole with his bogus leg elevated on a bale of copy paper, taking sucker shots at a steel wastebasket in the corner with crumpled sheets and missing every third time. The desk, filing cabinet, and visitor’s chair were stacked high with papers and file folders stuffed with clippings. Books on organized crime were jammed every which way onto shelves among unpublished manuscripts on the same subject, some of them his own. The back wall was plastered over with official police photos taken on the scene of notable gangland slayings. Office wags had added arch inscriptions to a number of them, complete with the victims’ forged signatures. The
News
boiled with wit.

“Sorry to bother you during your busy period,” I said, flipping his police pass onto the heap atop his desk. I transferred debris from the chair to an antique wooden whiskey crate he used for a magazine rack and sat down.