Dead Bang

Praise for
Dead Bang

“A hard-hitting novel. . . . [It] goes far beyond the usual mystery, combining espionage, intrigue, and thriller elements into the detective formula. Perfect. . . .”

—Midwest Book Review

“Good writers write what they know and Robert E. Bailey knows about the world of Private Detectives. Using his own knowledge and experience he depicts a believable tale that is entertaining and intriguing. This is gritty, smart storytelling that forces the reader to participate in the story rather than simply observe it. Fans of hardcore detective novels will enjoy this latest installment in the Art Hardin Mystery series.”

—The New Mystery Reader

“All the time
Dead Bang
is fast, lively and surprisingly informative and ingenious. . . . If you like your mysteries peppered with the bizarre and hilarious, with side dishes of history, then Dead Bang is a dead-on read for you!”

—Rebecca's Reads

“When a copy of Robert Bailey's new Art Hardin book
Dead Bang
came into my hands, I knew I was in for a thrill-ride. Not many authors since the great Chandler and John D. MacDonald of Travis McGee fame have the ability to write a book I know beforehand will not disappoint.

“In the third book in his Art Hardin series, Robert Bailey does not disappoint. This tale keeps the reader racing along with howls of laughter and seat of your pants excitement.”

—Reader Views

Also by Robert E. Bailey

Private Heat

Dying Embers

Robert E. Bailey

San Diego

Dead Bang

Ignition Books

Published by arrangement with the author.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Bailey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information please contact:
[email protected]
or by writing Endpapers Press, 4653 Carmel Mountain Road, Suite 308 PMB 212, San Diego, CA 92130-6650.

eISBN: 978-1-937868-03-1

Visit our website at:
www.endpaperspress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, or events either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, corporations, or other entities, is entirely coincidental.

Ignition Books are published by Endpapers Press
A division of Author Coach, LLC

The Ignition Books logo featuring a flaming “O” is a trademark ™ of Author Coach, LLC.

Dead Bang

F
EW WRITERS LABOR
in a vacuum—me, least of all. Thank you to my son Adam for his wit and to my son Eric for his critique. Thank you to my sister Mary Sue, who bought me a computer and printer when her faith was my best asset.

Thank you to my publisher, M. Evans and Company, and my agent, Andy Zack, without whose attentions this book would not be in your hands.

I cannot fail to thank David Poyer and his wife, Lenore Hart, who, together, are the beating heart of the Florida First Coast Writers' Festival. Without their kind attention and generous encouragement, there would be no Art Hardin Mystery Series.

Special thanks to Darby Grover, a fellow writer, who has mentored me through three novels. Extra special thanks to JoAnn Grover, Darby's wife, who tolerates my visits and the manuscript pages Darby and I flood over her kitchen table.

Thank you to Heather McClees, who, after slogging through the line edit of
Dying Embers,
was still talking to me. Heather helped me through the first three chapters and the outline for
Dead Bang.

Thank you to Linda Lyons, who picked up the red-pen stroke when Heather was forced to bow out of this project by a family tragedy. Linda provided valuable insights, critique, and hilarious “margin doodles.” I could hardly wait to review the pages she had marked up.

Thank you to Joe Erhardt, the chairman of my writer's group, and the members—Kaye Carrithers, John P. Carter, Denise Golinski, Eric Giles, Cathy Hill, Pamela K. Kinney, Linda Lyons, Heather McClees, Mark Pruett, David Swift, and Richard Thomas. Also a special remembrance here for two members of my group who have passed away since the publication of
Dying Embers:
first, Maurice Reveley, a writer's writer who wrote every day and lived to see his short stories published online and in print, and last but hardly least, Meredith Campbell, whose novel,
Righteous Warriors,
won the Missouri Historical Novel Award.

Thank you to Frank Green and the members of the Bard Society for their critique and encouragement, especially Steve Brown, author of
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Private Investigating,
a must read for mystery fans, private investigators, and anyone who hires a private investigator. Steve has always been generous with background information.

A giant thank you to Berni Aziz for her candid answers to my many questions and for a killer recipe for
sheckel-meshi.

Thank you to “Red Hat” ladies Anita Bickle, Teri Bowman, Jan Frazier, Jean Meyers, Ellen Neihoff, Diana O'Dell, Gail Phillips, Vickie Smith, and Nancy Sylver for their kind encouragement. Thank you to Linda Dewey—the jingle lady—for her critique. Watch for Linda's new book
Aaron's Crossing.

Thank you to my sister Gloria and brother, Bill, who were among my first—and remain my best—fans.

God bless my parents.

O
NCE UPON A TIME
, in the great Wolverine State, a short stretch of Dunn Road divided the city of Hamtramck from the city of Detroit. On the west side of Dunn Road, in Hamtramck, the old Dodge Main plant churned out midsized Detroit iron twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. On the east side of Dunn Road, the Detroit side, Great Lakes Sugar and Warehousing stored a million square feet of Uniroyal tires, but not one packet of sugar.

One night—in those days—a Hamtramck police cruiser idled near a bus bench on the west side of Dunn Road with its single blue light trolling the chilled darkness of both cities.

“Jesus, Arny,” said Hamtramck patrolman Harold Smolinski, “this guy is effing dead.” Smolinski played the shaft of light from his six-cell down from the corpse's vacant eyes, past a massive exit wound in the side of the corpse's neck, to two thumb-sized bullet holes in the chest. “Somebody shot the poor bastard with an effing cannon.”

“So much for our ‘drunk on the bus bench' call,” said Hamtramck patrolman Arnold Dancek. “What's that in his mouth?”

Smolinski flashed the light up to the corpse's mouth and revealed a thin sheaf of protruding dark feathers. Dancek, gritting his teeth, flexed the corpse's lip with the tip of his ballpoint pen and exposed a flash of yellow.

“It's a canary,” said Dancek. “This is a Mob job. That bird and this guy are all done singing.”

“You know who this is?” asked Smolinski. He grabbed the brim of his hat with both hands. Pulling down on the hat he said, “Oh, shit. I think I know who this effing is.”

“Who?” said Dancek, wiping his pen on the still-clean right shoulder of the corpse's blood-stained shirt.

Smolinski chopped with his index finger. “Was in the
Free Press.
Monday. His picture on the front effing page.”

“Naa,” said Dancek.

“Yeah,” said Smolinski, with a nod. “Jack Vincenti—Jack the Lookout. He took an effing racketeering bust.”

“Man,” said Dancek, “We're going to be up to our ass in feds.”

“Wish it had been a drunk,” said Smolinski.

“What if it was?” said Dancek.

“He would have flashed us the bird and shuffled over to the bus bench on the Detroit side.”

Dancek turned his head to look at the Detroit bus bench and then turned back to fix Smolinski's eyes with his.

“What?”

Dancek arched his eyebrows. “He did flash us the bird.”

They dragged Jack the Lookout across Dunn Road and heaved him onto the Detroit bus bench. Returning to their cruiser they settled on the nearest place to wash their hands. The rest of their shift amounted to a domestic call and taxiing home a drunk driver who turned out to be a city councilman. On their way back to the barn they couldn't pass up the chance to take a peek and see if the Detroit boys had found their surprise package.

They found the Detroit side of Dunn Road dark and desolate. Jack the Lookout sat racked on the Hamtramck bus bench with his chin on his chest and his arms hooked over the back rest.

“Sweet Jesus!” said Dancek.

“The fuck?” said Smolinski.

“Somebody moved the body back,” said Dancek.

“Ya think?” said Smolinski. He invested a couple of minutes squeezing the radio hand-mike like a lemon. When his hand started to shake he called in the dead body, but kept his suspicions about the corpse's identity to himself.

Much to Dancek and Smolinski's surprise, the shit never hit the fan. They were never up to their asses in feds. The detective who caught the case, Helen Kopinski, asked them not to discuss the matter. They happily obliged.

Two years later Arnold Dancek keeled over dead at age fifty-two, while
shoveling snow from his mother's driveway. Harold Smolinski manned the police security lines the day they imploded—the Sugar Shack—Great Lakes Warehouse. Later, he smiled as he watched end-loaders deposit Dunn Road into dump trucks, a bucket-load of broken concrete at a time.

By the time Harold Smolinski retired from the Hamtramck police force, the Poletown Cadillac Plant had erupted at the edge of Detroit and flowed into Hamtramck, smothering the place where Dunn Road had divided the cities. Harold moved to Florida—wore black socks and police brogans with his khaki shorts—and lived happily ever after because he never gave another thought to the wandering corpse of Jack the Lookout.

“S
OME STORIES
don't need to be told,” I said.

Mark Behler said, “Sure they do.” He leaned toward me and folded his hands on the table. “I do it all the time.”

“I don't,” I said. “My clients pay for discreet inquiries. I keep the secrets.”

“Some things shouldn't be secret,” he said. “The public has a right to know.”

“Mark Behler, Channel Six, Champion of the People,” I said, and pegged my straw through the “X” in the plastic lid on my soft drink. “Wreck one life, and on to the next.”

A hint of the basset hound shimmered onto his face. “I help people,” he said.

“You pander to morbid curiosity and dwell on the politically correct.”

“Only during sweeps week,” said Mark, letting his head tilt to one side. “C'mon! This was thirty-three years ago.” He showed me his palms. “In Detroit, for God's sake. John Vincenti was fifty-eight when he disappeared. He'd be ninety-one now!” He shrugged. “Who'd care?”

“You care,” I said.

“I have to fill a half-hour show every day,” said Mark. “I care about petunias and chipmunks.”

“Don't you have associate producers for that?”

“Cable news is killing us,” said Mark. “I have to do a lot of my own legwork.”

Two Mark Behlers occupied the same body. The one seated across the table—the “trust me, I'm a cuddly curmudgeon” Mark Behler—put me in mind of a battered teddy bear. His sports coat, just a little too small, hung open, revealing a necktie knotted just a little too short. Childhood chicken pox had left him with a scoop-marked complexion. The hair on the top of his head had retreated from the onslaught of a fourth decade.

I rocked back in my chair and tried to measure the intent in Behler's eyes. Had I stood up and walked out right then, had he followed me out blistering me with questions, we might have saved some lives, an international incident, and Mark Behler's career. But we didn't. I talked. He listened. I said, “Jack the Lookout Vincenti?”