When Last Seen Alive (29 page)

Authors: Gar Anthony Haywood

BOOK: When Last Seen Alive

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twenty

P
AT
K
EENE HAD DUMPED
T
HOMAS
S
ELMON
’
S BODY INTO
some heavy foliage on a hillside in Elysian Park, between the hours of 10:00 and 11:00
P.M.
two Thursdays ago. He’d been shot just once, right above the left eye, with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, nearly twelve hours previous. Mrs. Keene had never killed anyone before, but she followed up her first homicide—justifiable as her attorney would suggest in the weeks to come it was—remarkably well. She cleaned up the blood Selmon’s shooting had left behind in her living room, wrapped his corpse up in a sheet before dragging it out to the trunk of her car, and waited for Martin Keene to fall asleep that evening before driving out to Elysian Park to dispose of their old nemesis from Chicago. Until Gunner’s second visit to the Keene home in two weeks, Pat Keene’s devoted husband had never suspected a thing.

No one in either the local or national press recommended Selmon’s killer for sainthood, exactly, but they came close, treating her story as that of someone who by no means deserved to be punished to the full extent of the law.

As for Yolanda McCreary, the news that her brother had actually been alive as recently as eight days ago hit her fairly hard. It didn’t seem fair to have come so close to saving him, only to have him killed less than a twenty-minute ride on the freeways of Los Angeles beyond her reach. And yet, she was not inconsolable. Like many people, the last few days had reminded her all over again what a manipulative, self-centered sociopath had lain at the heart of all Thomas Selmon’s various guises and/or identities, so that it was difficult, even for her, to much regret his passing.

Still, she accompanied her brother’s body back to St. Louis and attended his funeral there before returning home to Chicago, doing what she could to console the family his greed had essentially denied a husband and father. The only promise she made to Gunner before leaving was that she’d stay in regular contact, talk to him on the phone at least once or twice a week, and maybe even exchange a letter or two. And if or when it became clear to her that their feelings for each other were of genuine substance, not something time and distance could easily erase, she’d put Ken the fireman down gently and come running back to Los Angeles as fast as modern aviation would allow.

It was the smartest approach possible to the care and feeding of their budding romance, Gunner knew, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed, all the same. His best case scenario had her staying here in Los Angeles and reversing the process, only going back to Chicago if their relationship proved a failure.

But he did the sensible thing and let her go, anyway.

Confident a man who’d been alone for most of his adult life could live that way for another few weeks, at least.

“This shit will kill you. I assume you know that,” Carroll Smith said, biting into a Garbage Burrito at the El Rey taco stand on Normandie and Martin Luther King. The El Rey’s signage said it was the “home” of the Garbage Burrito, and Smith, for one, believed it. Big as his hands were, he’d never had as much trouble keeping a tortilla closed in his life.

“Once every three months, how much can it hurt?” Gunner asked the FBI man, tearing into his own meat-and-cheese-packed house specialty.

“It’s not that I’m into tofu, or anything, but you might have picked a more healthy establishment, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Relax. I’m sure your partner Leffman will eat more than enough broccoli at lunch today to compensate for both of us.”

Smith glanced around uneasily, the open-air accommodations of the taco stand making him feel more conspicuous than he really was. “You’re probably right,” he said.

“So what can you tell me?”

“Very little, I’m afraid. Scales is playing the stand-up guy right to the very end.”

“You haven’t picked up
anybody?”

“Not yet. We can’t turn the son of a bitch.”

Gunner just shook his head, afraid that if he said anything, he wouldn’t know how to stop.

“But it doesn’t matter. We’re going to get the rest of them eventually, with or without his help. I promise you that.”

“You wanna promise me something? Promise me the next time you need a civilian to draw fire for you, you’ll take it down the street.”

“Take it easy, partner. We found Scales in Texas, remember? If he bailed, the others may have, too. They’ve gone mobile before.”

“From New Hampshire to California, you mean.”

“Yeah. Chances are, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

“But you’re gonna keep an eye on me, anyway.”

Smith nodded. “At least for a week or two. Maybe longer. We’d be stupid not to.”

Gunner finished eating, piled all his trash onto his tray. “Thanks, Agent. It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

He started to get up, but Smith said, “Wait a minute.”

Gunner did.

“You were there, and I wasn’t. So I have to ask. No one’s in a better position to say than you.”

“Say what?”

“How sincere they sounded. About killing you if you didn’t back off.”

“If you’re asking was the man laughing when he said it, the answer is no. He wasn’t.”

“Then you’re genuinely concerned they’ll come after you. Sooner or later.”

Gunner was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t know what they’re going to do. And frankly, I don’t much care. Running scared doesn’t pay the bills, Agent Smith. The Defenders come looking, I won’t be hard to find.”

Smith nodded again, solemnly this time, and said, “In that case, I’d like to give you something. Call it a parting gift for playing the ‘FBI Game.’ ”

He opened the attaché case sitting beside his chair, removed a leather, holstered automatic and slid it to the investigator’s end of the table. Gunner immediately recognized it as the weapon Smith had loaned him earlier in the week, the one he had used to put Jack Frerotte down for the last time.

“Your Para-Ordinance,” he said.

“We’ve already got transfer-of-ownership in the works,” Smith said, “but that’ll take about thirty days to go through. I’d appreciate it if you could find a way not to use it until then.”

Gunner was nearly speechless; generosity from the Feds was something he’d never seen before. “It’s a lovely gesture, Agent, but—”

“Forget it. The Bureau pays for ’em, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

Gunner still hadn’t picked the gun up.

“Take it,” Smith said. “It might not make
you
feel any better, but it will
me.
Go on.”

Gunner did as he was told and nodded a wordless thanks.

That night when he went home, Gunner stepped through the front door with his Ruger drawn, didn’t holster it again until he’d made a pass through the entire house, room by room. He’d been doing this now for three days, and was destined to go on doing it for several more. By the eighth day, however, his belief that the practice was worth his while had all but dissipated, leading him to abandon it.

Only once was he tempted to take it up again.

Exactly thirty-four days after his Monday afternoon lunch with Carroll Smith, he was sitting at his desk at Mickey’s, opening a three-day accumulation of mail, when he came upon a letter in a plain white business envelope bearing no return address. Unsigned, the letter’s simple, block-lettered content consisted of a single line:

ALLAH IS ON OUR SIDE

Gunner read the letter three times, then put it away in a desk drawer, where it would remain for two days, or until Carroll Smith could come out to take it away for forensics testing.

Acknowledgments

For their generous contributions of time and expertise, the author would like to thank:

Detective John Yarbrough
Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department

and

Capt. Brent F. Burton
Los Angeles County Fire Department

Oh, and a long overdue hearty handshake is also hereby offered to my wise and noble agent:

Dominick Abel

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com