A Killer's Kiss (14 page)

THURSDAY

Something woke me up that very night. I couldn’t tell if it was a dream or a noise doing the waking, but I was already awake when I heard the refrigerator door open. You know the sound, the pull of the handle, the
thwump
of the door unsealing, the rattle of bottles, as prosaic a domestic sound as exists in this world.

Except I live alone.

I rolled out of bed and landed on my feet as quietly as I could manage. Light was slipping through the crack at the bottom of the bedroom door. I looked around for something to grab. My clock radio read 4:06 before I yanked the cord out of the wall and raised overhead the heavy rectangle with its sharp edges.

The hiss of a beer bottle being opened. A swallow. Some sort of soft conversation and then the television being turned on. There were at least two of them, and they weren’t trying not to be heard, which was troubling. Did they even know I was here?

I crept to the bedroom door, slowly turned the knob, gently pushed the door ajar, silently peeked through the crack, the clock radio held high and ready.

I guess I wasn’t as silent as I thought.

“Hey, bo,” said Derek Moats, sitting in my easy chair, feet propped on the coffee table, remote in one hand, beer in the other. He stared right at me with a not-so-bright smile. “You want to join us?”

I pushed the door fully open, the clock radio still hoisted, and took a step forward.

“What the hell are—” was all I got out before I saw the other man, standing by my dining table, tall and broad, with tattoos and dark glasses and a porkpie hat. It was the big guy from the Jamaican juke joint. And he wasn’t looking too pleased.

“You remember Antoine, hey, bo?” said Derek.

“Yes, of course.” And strangely, even though they had broken into my apartment, as I stood before the two of them in my boxers and T-shirt, I suddenly felt humiliatingly underdressed. “What’s going on?” I said, lowering the clock radio so it covered my crotch.

“Antoine just wanted to go for a ride,” said Derek. “Catch you up to date on the news.”

“News?”

“I guess you haven’t heard.”

“No,” I said. “I haven’t heard. But couldn’t we discuss this at a reasonable hour, and maybe at my office?”

“Antoine thought you’d want to hear it right away and see it in person.”

“That was kind of you, Antoine.”

“And without no delay.”

I looked at Derek, who was no longer smiling, and then at Antoine, who was just then scratching a thick bicep.

“You mind if I get something on?” I said.

“It’d do us all a favor if you did,” said Derek. “But don’t take
too long, and don’t make any calls, all right? Antoine is feeling a little antsy right about now. Ain’t you, Antoine?”

Antoine didn’t respond.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said. “Make yourself at home.”

“We already done that,” said Derek, raising the beer. “You got that HBO?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Groovy. I think they got them strippers on this time of night.”

Back in my bedroom, I put down the clock radio, slipped on a shirt, a pair of jeans, the heavy black shoes with the steel toes. This was getting to be an unpleasant habit. I glanced at the phone beside the bed and debated using it, but then who would I call? The police? And say what? That a client and his pal, who had helped me find an alibi for an accused murderer, had broken into my apartment and now I wanted them arrested? No, I wouldn’t call. I’d play it cool. I could play it cool, sure. But first I had to check out the bathroom, because, frankly, having these two guys in my apartment in the middle of the night scared the piss out of me.

“All right, gentlemen,” I said, with as much confidence as I could muster as I walked to the refrigerator. I opened the refrigerator door, leaned in, took out a beer of my own. “Let’s hear it.”

“Turn off the set, mon,” said Antoine. “We going now.”

“Ah, Antoine, dude, look at the size of her mammaries. You could feed small countries with them beauties.”

“Turn it off,” said Antoine. Derek did as he was told. “You made me promises,” Antoine said to me.

“Did I?” I unscrewed the bottle top, took a swig, coughed embarrassingly when too much went down my throat. That’s the way it is when you’re racked with fear, even the most instinctive acts are no longer instinctual.

“You made promises.”

“Okay, yes. I did.”

“You said you keep them police out of it.”

“I said I would do that if I could. And I only told the bare bones of what I learned.”

“Old saying,” said Antoine. “If fish nevva open him mouth, him wouldn’t get ketch.”

“What the hell does that mean? What happened?”

“Let’s be going now, Derek,” said Antoine.

“I’m not sure if I really want to go for a—”

“Why this bwoy keep jabbering?” said Antoine. “Derek, why this bwoy, he still jabbering?”

“I don’t know, man. He’s an idiot, I guess. You mind if I turn the telly back on, see if that girl with the rack is still dancing?”

“Let’s be going,” said Antoine.

“Damn shame to miss all of that,” said Derek as he stood up from the chair and dropped the remote. “What about the beer? There’s some left in the fridge. Shame to waste it on Victor, isn’t it?”

“Take it,” said Antoine.

“I had enough of this urban blight,” said Derek, as he drove my car north, through the dark city streets. Antoine was sitting next to Derek in the front seat. I was alone with my anxiety in the back.

“I was thinking about moving out to the burbs,” said Derek, in a monologue without end. “I could kick up my heels, watch the big screen. Or maybe find some desperate housewife desperate for a bone. That’s what I hear about them burbs, full of women just looking for someone who knows how to treat them right while the husbands are toiling for the green.”

“And you’re just the one they’re looking for,” I said as I stared out the window, trying to figure where we were headed.

“Why not? Maybe a place in Jersey. That would cinch it, don’t you think? Jersey housewives, as ripe as them Jersey tomatoes. Just not as red. And without the stems.”

“Where are we going?”

“You be seeing soon enough,” said Antoine.

Derek turned left and then right again, past dark streets with collapsing houses and junked-up yards. And then we hit the railroad tracks, and I felt a sense of dread, which deepened when I smelled the smoke.

“One of them big houses,” said Derek. “You know them things they building on every last open lot, all turrets and windows and the fancy driveways. Like what T.O. was doing them sit-ups in front of. That was in New Jersey, wasn’t it?”

“I think so.”

“That’s what I want. What does that set you back, Victor?”

“About a million,” I said.

“Really, for that crap? Got to work on my balling, I suppose.”

The smell of smoke grew stronger. We followed the tracks down toward a passel of bright, blinking reds and blues and a ring of arc lights.

We drove slowly past the lights. Fire trucks and police cars, all in front of some abandoned lot, surrounded by a pile of abandoned cars, the arc lights illuminating a smoldering pile of cinder, covered by twisted bits of corrugated metal. The stench of burning turned my stomach.

A group of uniformed cops and firemen was surrounding a man, who peered past the crew of officials and right into the car as we passed.

Barnabas.

My stomach turned again until it twisted into a knot.

“They came tonight,” said Derek. “The police. A swarm of them, like bees, and burned it to the ground.”

“The police burned it down?”

“That’s the way it played.”

“Barnabas was running an illegal juke joint,” I said. “The police were trying to close it down. I’m sorry to see this—Barnabas’s goat is terrific—but what does that have to do with me?”

“It not about the club,” said Antoine. “They wasn’t there about the club.”

“Then what were they after?”

“Jamison,” said Antoine.

“They were asking everyone about him,” said Derek. “Who he was. Who he worked for. Where he could be found. They didn’t look so friendly, bo. They didn’t look like they was going to pin some medal on his chest.”

“Did they find him?” I said.

“Nah, mon,” said Antoine. “And when it come clear that they not, that no one be giving that bwoy up, they cleared the place, and that’s when the fire it started.”

“Is everyone okay?” I said.

“Everyone got out,” said Derek. “But Barnabas lost the club. And he couldn’t stop asking about the man in the suit who came in just one day before the police.”

“I get the idea,” I said, and I did. “It doesn’t make any sense. Where’s Jamison now?”

“Gone,” said Antoine. “And whatever it was he told you that night, that’s gone, too. You going to forget it happened.”

“Jamison is the alibi for a woman who is facing life in prison,” I said.

“He not catching on so quick,” said Antoine to Derek. “Didn’t you tell me he was clever, bwoy?”

“I must have been overestimating him,” said Derek.

“That don’t seem so hard,” said Antoine.

Antoine turned around in the front seat and stared right at me with those dark glasses of his. “Now, here’s the story as it concerns you, Mr. Victor Carl. The folks that Jamison was selling for, they are not happy that Jamison is on the run. He was a good bwoy for them. And they are not happy that Barnabas’s place it burned down, because they liked his curry. And they are not happy that them police are storming their corners and asking questions. And for this they blame me, and they blame Derek, and most of all they blame you.”

“It’s the second part of that what’s really troubling, if you ask me,” said Derek.

“So this is not just suggestion that you leave this alone,” said Antoine.

“It’s a threat,” I said.

He leaned toward me, slapped a big mitt on my ear, grabbed my face, and pulled it close to his. “There you go, mon,” he said. “There you go.”

I grabbed onto his wrist, like grabbing onto a metal fence post. “I get it,” I said. “I get it, I get it.”

He gave me another quick slap and then turned around to face front again. “So now you know. You want us take you to them who are not happy? You need them to deliver the request in face-a-face?”

“No,” I said.

“That was the first smart thing came out from your lips all night,” said Derek.

“And you also should be knowing, Victor Carl,” said Antoine, “that the bwoy assigned to enforce all this is me. So I want to be able a report back that the message it was sent and that Jamison is no longer mess up in that thing.”

“Okay,” I said meekly.

“You leave this alone, Mr. Victor Carl, or someone going a get a licking, that’s for sure.”

“Just so long as it ain’t me,” said Derek, “then you can do what you want.”

“Understood?”

“Understood,” I squeaked.

“Good,” said Antoine. “Now we all be buddies again. Pull over there, D.”

“Here?”

“Fine. I be back in a minute. No slip-ups, right?”

“No, sir,” I said.

Antoine nodded as he opened the door, left the car, headed into an alley, and disappeared.

“You’re one dumb son of a bitch,” said Derek. “You just lucky I was here to save your ass.”

“Funny, I don’t feel lucky.”

“This isn’t the way they wanted to handle it, but I convinced them you were some big-shot lawyer with City Hall connections and that killing you would bring down serious heat.”

“You lied for me, Derek? That’s almost sweet.”

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Especially since you still haven’t paid me for the other night.”

“Show up tomorrow and I’ll write you a check.”

“No check, bo. Cash.”

“Fine. Is Jamison going to be okay?”

“Thanks to you, he’s on the run. But he has family in the South, and he’s on his way to visit as we speak. He’ll be gone a long while.”

“I suppose that’s good,” I said. “For Jamison.”

“And for you, too.”

“But not for my old girlfriend.”

“See, that’s the beauty of old girlfriends,” said Derek. “No matter how much they mean to you, everyone else just don’t give a damn.”

“The cops who stormed the club,” I said. “Do you have any idea who they were? Were they narcotics agents, L&I people?”

“Was a mess of cops swarming the place,” said Derek. “But the leader and the one asking the questions was a little guy in a flash suit.”

“I get the idea,” I said.

“He was handing out his card like he was looking for a date. Asking anyone who found Jamison to give him a call. He was real determined like.”

“I bet he was,” I said.

It didn’t make any sense, I couldn’t yet see the reasoning behind it, but what had happened was pretty clear. Sims hadn’t just
come for Jamison, he had come for me, too, throwing me headfirst into deep, shark-infested waters. I couldn’t tell if I was more angry or more scared, but I was sure more something.

“You know, Derek,” I said, “I should be happier than I am right now, seeing as how I’ve just been totally screwed.”

When I stepped into my office a few hours later, my mind thick with the syrup of sleep deprivation, it took me a moment to take in the scene.

“Oh, it was quite a night, yes it was,” said Derek as he leaned on my secretary’s desk. “You should come join Derek some evening. He’ll show you a time. You don’t know what you’re missing by not partying with Derek.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” said Ellie without looking up from the papers on her desk. “And Ellie doesn’t date anyone who refers to himself in the third person.”

“There won’t be no third person,” said Derek. “Only me.”

“Hello, Derek,” I said. “A little early, isn’t it?”

He swiveled his head and smiled. “Never too early for collections, bo,” he said before turning back to Ellie. “So what you say?”

“I already said it,” said Ellie. “You have a few messages,
Mr. Carl. And a visitor who decided to wait instead of coming back, which indicates to Ellie that there is not much going on in his life.”

“Derek’s got patience, is what he’s got,” said Derek.

“Leave her alone,” I said as I stepped up to the desk to grab my messages. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Derek, but I’m going to have to go to an ATM to get your payment.”

“Okay,” he said, backing off. “Can’t blame a man for trying. But, bo, you got any new magazines or what? I already read these dogs. And you could use something with a little spice.
Maxim,
maybe. I hear all the best law firms, they subscribe to
Maxim.
”

“You read it just for the articles, I suppose.”

“They got articles? By the way, if you want, I’m available for lunch.”

“That’s an upset,” said Ellie.

“Derek likes them sassy,” said Derek.

“Ellie, can you get me Detective McDeiss on the phone without telling the secretary who wants to talk to him?”

“Of course.”

“If she needs a name, tell him it’s Prentice from the mortuary. And if Derek keeps hitting on you, you have my permission to staple his hand to your desk.”

“That’s cold, bo,” said Derek. “After what I done for you last night.”

“Next time you visit my apartment, Derek, knock,” I said as I passed Ellie and slipped into my office.

I went through the messages quickly, the usual crap, clients calling to complain about their cases, prosecutors calling to complain about my filings, copier salesmen trying to sell me copiers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there was a message that pushed a shiver down my spine: “Mr. Trocek called, said he had a funny story for you.” Believe me when I tell you that was one funny story I did not want to hear.

“Detective McDeiss on line two, Mr. Carl,” said Ellie, standing now in my office door.

“Thank you,” I said. “And if Mr. Trocek calls again, tell him I’m out of town.”

“When will you be back?”

“Thanksgiving,” I said as I picked up the phone and pressed the blinking button.

“Did you hear about the fire?” I said to McDeiss.

“The one at Barnabas’s place?” he said.

“You know Barnabas?”

“Best goat north of Kingston. I suspected that his place was what you were talking about when you brought up the alibi. Then, when I heard about the fire last night, I figured the alibi and the fire might be linked.”

“Linked absolutely,” I said. “It was Sims who burned the place down while he was looking for the alibi witness.”

“You sure?”

“I got word firsthand. Not that Sims has much of a chance to find him anymore.”

“The witness ran?”

“He’s as good as gone.”

“How’d Sims know where to look for him?”

“I might have told him enough for him to figure out,” I said. “He wanted me to put pressure on Julia, I wanted him to back off, so I followed your advice and gave him what I had. It didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped. But I should have known better than to give Sims anything. As the old saying goes, the stupid fish should just keep his damn mouth shut. Do you have any idea what Sims is after?”

“A killer?” said McDeiss.

“Yeah, sure, and all we need is love. He’s got something else on his mind that he’s not spilling yet. But either way, what he did last night was strange. Why would he make so much noise looking for a witness that he ended up chasing him off?”

“Maybe he wanted to chase him.”

“Why?”

“To get rid of a lie that was threatening to gum up his case.”

“A lie?”

“The alibi wasn’t any good, Victor. It wouldn’t have held up. You said she was in North Philly buying drugs. But the toxicology reports blow that out of the water. The victim was clean, no drugs in the system, no sign of needle marks. And your old girlfriend was clean, too.”

“Oh.”

“If she was buying drugs, who were they for?”

“Damn good question,” I said.