Dead Bang (21 page)

• • •

“Damn, Hardin,” said Mark, as we rolled out of the sheriff's department parking lot. “When you're right, you're right. Ten minutes! That's all the tape we need. Just that shot.” He patted Robby, the cameraman, on the shoulder. “Cut it so we have the sheriff on for a sentence or two. Doesn't hurt to make a friend.”

“Back to the JC?” I asked.

“I want to hit some pawnshops,” said Behler. “Let's see if we can find a Saturday night special.”

“The pawnshops around here don't do handguns,” I said. “You might get a good price on a shotgun or a deer rifle, but handguns attract too much official scrutiny.”

“Be a sport,” said Behler. “Let's check it out.”

“Mind if I smoke?” asked Robby.

I put the window on his side down a couple of inches. “I got a question,” I said.

“Shoot,” said Behler.

“Some wacko blew up your studio, put your show on coast to coast, and made your name a household word. Why are you hanging on to this lame-ass local story?”

“I don't think it's lame,” said Behler. “Don't you see the connection?”

“Completely in the dark.”

“The guns,” said Behler, making his voice a verbal shrug. “The same people who want to keep guns cheap and easy to get are the people who want America to be the bully of the world. This lame-ass local story is a
chink in their armor. They're the reason that the abused and desperate man who called my show blew himself up. I can insert the crowbar into this story and, maybe, pry some good into the world.”

“You want to make the world a better place?”

“Damn right,” said Behler. “That's why I became a journalist.”

“I'd think the clergy, or maybe social work,” I said.

“I didn't want to be a tool of the ruling class.”

“Whose tool are you now?”

“And that means what?” asked Behler.

“If you could push one button and it would kill all the global bullies in this ‘ruling class,' would you push the button?”

“Don't be silly.”

“Next time you get one of these abused and desperate terrorists on the telephone, ask him if he'd push the button to get rid of all of us.”

“That wouldn't lead to any real dialogue,” said Behler.

“What makes you think they want to talk?”

“They release audio tape and videos all the time.”

“Which you dutifully report and broadcast,” I said.

“Our national strength is founded on a free press,” said Behler.

“Maybe they think it's a chink in our armor,” I said as we pulled into Suburban Pawn and Payday Loans on Plainfield Avenue. We found no handguns. Ditto two more pawnshops in the seedier sections of South Division Avenue. We finally strolled into Ned's Sport Shop in Wyoming, and Behler got to shop some handguns.

“Nothing better for home security than a shotgun,” said Ned, a retired motorcycle cop with a chrome-molly knee brace strapped to his leg. “Why the camera?”

Behler offered his hand. “Mark Behler,
The Mark Behler Show.
Thought you'd like to be on TV.”

“You're already on my camera,” said Ned, pointing to a video surveillance system in the ceiling. He shook Behler's hand. “No reason I shouldn't be on yours. I've got a great special on pump shotguns. Burglar hears you rack that sucker, and he's on his way back out the window.”

“No,” said Behler. “I think a handgun would be best.”

Ned smiled into Robby's camera and suggested a revolver. “It's dependable, more intuitive for the occasional shooter, and inherently safer than an autoloader.”

Mark balked at the price of a new Colt or Smith. Ned said he had a good used .38 caliber Police Special with a four-inch barrel. Behler nodded, and Ned turned around to get the revolver out of a drawer in the back bar. Behler took a key chain made from a dummy .44 caliber round
and a set of earplugs off the counter and slipped them into the pocket of his trench coat. Robby deflected the camera and rolled his eyes.

“A hundred and fifty-nine dollars,” said Ned. He flipped open the cylinder of a blue steel Smith & Wesson with the finish worn down to the metal on the trigger guard.

“Looks pretty rough,” I said.

Ned set the revolver on the counter. “County mounty carried it a lot and shot it a little. He got promoted to plainclothes and traded this on a brand-new SIG Sauer. Blue it, and it's like brand-new.”

“I'll take it,” said Behler, reaching for his wallet, “and I'll need a box of bullets.”

“Need your purchase permit,” said Ned. He flopped a clipboard of federal firearms forms on the counter with a ballpoint pen.

Behler thumbed his wallet open and selected a credit card. “The Teletype was down,” he said and flipped the card on the counter. “The sheriff said I could pick it up tomorrow. Just wrap it up, and I'll drop the permit by tomorrow. I can get the forms then, too. We're in kind of a hurry now.”

Ned pushed the credit card back with his index finger. “Since you'll be here tomorrow—”

“Tell him, Art,” said Behler. “We were just at the sheriff's office. Takes ten minutes. Just a formality.”

“No ticky, no shirty,” I said. “That's how it works.”

Ned made a relieved chuckle, and Behler picked up his credit card.

“I need a little B-roll of your back walking out of the shop,” said Robby. “Stay outside for a minute and then come back in so I can shoot some of you coming through the door.”

“I didn't bring my hair,” said Behler. “How about if I just wait for you outside?”

“You're the boss,” said Robby, hoisting the camera to his shoulder.

Behler squared his shoulders and marched out the door.

Robby turned off the camera, turned to Ned, and said, “How much for the earplugs and a key chain?”

“Two sixty-seven,” said Ned, reaching for a small bag.

“It's all right,” said Robby. “Mark already has them. He doesn't carry cash. I pick up things like this.”

“Oh,” said Ned with a flash of eyebrows. He took Robby's fin and made change.

“I put it on my expenses,” said Robby.

“Right,” said Ned, handing over the receipt.

Robby stuffed his camera into the gym bag. On the way to the door I asked, “He always do that?”

“Just since the shooting in the pizzeria,” said Robby. “He doesn't even know he has the stuff.”

“Maybe you ought to have a little heart-to-heart with him.”

“Maybe when things calm down. We just had the bombing at the studio. Probably a stress thing. It'll pass.”

Robby loaded himself into the back seat of my car. Behler took the shotgun seat. “Back to JC?” I asked.

“Right,” said Behler.

“Sure you don't want to scout a few street corners?”

“No,” said Behler. He laughed. “This went great. I'm glad you had the idea about going to apply for a permit to purchase. I'm going to lead with that and finish with your line about none of the paperwork stopping Peggy Shatner from shooting people in the pizzeria.”

“It's the people, not the guns,” I said.

“That's a cliché.”

“So is ‘a stitch in time.'”

“We only need one more stitch,” said Behler. “No guns in private hands.”

“Hitler agreed with you,” I said. “So did Mao.”

“I see you read your NRA talking points,” said Behler. “But that doesn't change the fact that a terrorist can walk into a gun show and walk out with an assault rifle. It's in the al-Qaeda manual the army captured in Afghanistan. God knows they're here. They blew up my show.”

“You think they bought the explosives at a gun show?”

“Probably smuggled them,” said Behler.

“Maybe they could smuggle assault rifles too,” I said. “Then they would be the only ones with guns. I'm sure criminals would like that, too. All the law-abiding citizens would be easy prey.”

“‘When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns,'” said Behler. “I think that's the NRA party line.”

“That's a cliché,” I said. “Why not just tell your audience that what stopped Peggy Shatner was a private citizen with a licensed firearm?”

A
FTER
I
DROPPED OFF
Behler and Robby—you could have cut and stacked the polite silence like mud bricks—I headed for Meijer's to pick up baked beans, potato salad, and ribs. The pork ribs came two racks to a package, but the beef ribs looked fantastic, so I bought some of them as well. Like my grandmother told me, “Never shop when you're hungry.”

At the house, I found Archer Flynt parked at the end of my drive. He followed me in with his rollers on. I parked in front of my door, walked back to Flynt's door, and leaned on his roof until he let down his window. I asked, “Now what, Flynt?”

“That's Detective Flynt to you, Hardin,” he said, his collar loose, his eyes red, and his face rumpled.

“What do you want?”

“For one thing, you can quit leaning on my car,” said Flynt.

I took my hands off the roof of Flynt's tan state plain-wrapper and stepped back. He rolled his window up and stepped out in the same suit I'd seen the day before.

“You want to talk here or at the state police post in Rockford?” he asked.

“I'll call my attorney and see when he's available.”

“Fine,” said Flynt. “You can cool your heels at the county jail until your attorney works us into his schedule.”

I held out my wrists. “I need the money.”

He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Hardin, you called me.”

“I didn't invite you to my house.”

“I took the tone of your call. You wanted to help.”

“That's why you're parked in my drive with your rollers on?”

Flynt opened his car door and switched off the lights. “I turned them on because you piss me off.”

“You come on like the Mongol horde and get pissy when your neighbors start building walls.”

“Cuts down on the shuck and jive,” said Flynt.

I laughed.

He shrugged.

“So we're back to what-do-you-want,” I said.

“Here's what I've got,” said Flynt, jamming his hands into his pants pockets. “Detective Helen Kopinski retired from the Hamtramck Police in ninety-two and died this past January. Hamtramck doesn't have a homicide file for John Vincenti. That leaves the photo featuring your thumbprint and Vincenti dead.”

“Probably cost me three or four hundred dollars for an attorney,” I said, “but we've been over that.”

“This is a homicide,” said Flynt.

“Sure is a lot of heat and friction for a thirty-year-old Mob hit.”

“How do you know it was a Mob hit?” asked Flynt.

“A man best known as Jack the Lookout takes a bust for bookmaking and racketeering and then turns up dead on a bus bench with a canary in his mouth? Just a guess on my part.”

“Got any other guesses?”

“I guess I'd start with the license plate number on the back of the picture. I guess I'd find the owner. I guess I'd ask him, ‘Who are the guys in this picture?'”

Flynt rattled the change in his pockets and studied his shoes. “In those days, the plate numbers were on microfilm. They were archived for four years and then went into the dumpster.”

Being as I now had a client, Lily, who'd fronted me ten K, and my best lead had just swirled down the crapper, I said, “C'mon in, it's just me and the boys tonight. My wife has a surveillance out in Holland.”

The smile that spread across Detective Archer Flynt's face is the reason executioners have always worn hoods. We moved the cars up to the house. I made him help me lug in the groceries. Rusty met us at the top of the stairs, dancing and wagging his tail.

“Is the dog all right?” asked Flynt.

“I don't know,” I said. “Looks vicious to me.”

“That's the biggest chocolate lab I've ever seen.”

“Mostly hair,” I said. “Leaves it all over the house.”

Ben had a movie running on the VCR. I told him, “Ben, this is Detective Archer Flynt, state police.”

Ben pushed the pause on the remote, walked over, and offered his hand. “Pleasure to meet you,” he said.

Archer took his hand for a quick shake.

“We get you a soda? Cup of coffee?” asked Ben.

“I got a long drive,” said Flynt.

Ben went back to his movie. Flynt looked stunned, unaccustomed as he was to having polite hospitality and me in the same frame. I hung my coat in the hall closet and parked my Colt on the top of the refrigerator.

“Some place we can talk?” asked Flynt.

“I gotta get the ribs on,” I said. I rolled up my sleeves and washed my hands in the kitchen sink. “I cook 'em low and slow. Pull up a seat.”

Flynt grabbed a stool and slid up to the far side of the island counter. “You're the only lead I've got,” he said. Rusty walked up squeaking a ball in his mouth, dropped it at Flynt's feet, and nudged Flynt's leg with his nose.

“Go lie down,” I said and showed Rusty my index digit. “Hey Ben, where's Daniel?” I rinsed out the sink with the sprayer.

“He had a date,” said Ben. “They went up to Greenville to see a movie. He said to save him some ribs.”

“Snooze, you lose,” I said. Rusty sat next to me and leaned his weight into my leg. I closed the sink drain, started the water running, and nudged the dog with my leg. “Go lie down. I'm cooking.”

Rusty slunk off a half dozen steps into the dining room, circled twice, and flopped down to watch me. After adding vinegar to the water, I turned back to unpack the ribs and stared at Flynt until he looked uncomfortable. When he started to fidget, I asked, “Who sent you the picture?”