Dead Bang (36 page)

“Too bad,” said Yolonda. “Franky won't shut up about Jimmy Hoffa.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I think he just wants some attention.”

“Well, if there's no point?” I said.

“Franky don't get any visitors,” she said. “Long as you're here, you know. If you don't mind.”

“I really have a lot to do,” I said. “I promised my wife I'd be home tonight. I have to get back to the motel and pack before checkout time.”

“You can't go until you get your car,” said Jamal.

“I expect they'll call anytime,” I said. “And then we have to go.”

“I don't care about your car or packing your suitcase,” said Yolonda. “You both come out here looking like something the cat dragged in. And I had to stop what I'm doing to fool with you.” She pointed down the hall. “You just go down to the sunroom and wait. If they call, you can go.” She shook a finger at Jamal and left with purpose in her steps. “Else you be there.”

Jamal said, “We best be in the sunroom.”

“Not to worry,” I said. “My plan is to stay on Yolonda's good side.”

The sunroom featured lots of glass, a jungle of plants in pots, and residents in wheelchairs. We gathered a few passive glances. Jamal offered his hat. “Here, you hold it,” he said. “It goes with your shoes.”

I took the hat.

Jamal whispered, “This ain't no way to live.”

“Every breath is sweet,” I said. “You and I can get a couple of rocking chairs and try to top each other's whoppers.”

Yolonda rolled Franky into the sunroom wearing a blue-and-white-striped bathrobe and pajamas buttoned to the neck. A urine collection bag hung from the wheelchair. His uniformly sparse hair, gray where it wasn't white, had been combed neatly over his spotted pate.

Franky listed hard to port. His face drooped from his skull on the left side, and his left hand lay limp in his lap. The right side of his face reflected cautious doubt, while his right eye, brown, revealed a remorseless and predatory heart.

Yolonda spaced out her words in a near monotone. “Franky, this is Jamal Wilson and Art Hardin. They're detectives.” Jamal smiled. “They have some questions about a man you might have known.”

“John Vincenti,” I said.

Franky spoke, turning slightly to Yolonda. I didn't get what he said. Yolonda screwed her face into a question mark and said, “Jack the Lookout?”

“That's the guy,” I said.

Franky made a faint half smile and spoke. “He said he never heard of him,” said Yolonda.

I laughed, and Franky exhaled a low gravel comment that sounded like, “Whoa toocum test wienie?”

Yolonda said, “He says, ‘Did you come to arrest him?'”

I said, “Yeah, if it's all right, I'll just handcuff you to the chair.”

Yolonda looked appalled. Franky made a laugh that turned into a wheeze and then a cough. Yolonda hauled him back upright and patted his shoulder. When he settled down, he wavered his right hand out to me, and I took it. I patted our joined right hands with my left and said, “How ya doing, Franky? Didn't I see you at a bus stop on Dunn Road, across from the Sugar Shack?”

Franky gave me more grip than I imagined he had and took his hand back. He said something. Yolonda said, “He says he don't have to talk about that.”

“I heard you got a great Jimmy Hoffa story,” I said.

Yolonda rolled her eyes.

Franky nodded, looked at Yolonda, made a little mischief in his good eye, and spoke. Yolonda said, “He don't want to talk about that either.”

“Great meeting you, Franky,” I said. “I know you're busy.” My cell phone growled in my pocket. I hauled it out. “Hardin.”

“McNeal. You want your car back, you better get your ass down here. You know where. Half hour and I slap the cuffs on this moke, and they tow the car to the impound as evidence.”

“Half hour,” I said. “We're on our way.” I held out the hat. Jamal took it.

Franky made a loud, “Whaa!”

Yolonda said, “Wait,” and Franky garbled on. “He wants to know if it's important—the call, I mean.”

“Real important,” I said.

Franky made his half smile and spoke. Yolonda said, “He says he'll tell you about Vincenti if you listen to the Jimmy Hoffa story first.”

“I gotta go,” I said and looked at Franky. “Thank you, but I have to go.”

I managed about three steps when Yolonda said, “The cops dragged Jack the Lookout across the street.”

I stopped.

“He says he has a story he never told,” said Yolonda.

I looked at my watch. “How long to get downtown?”

“No traffic right now,” said Jamal.

“All right,” I said and walked back to Franky. Franky fluoroscoped me from head to toe with his good eye. I looked at my watch. Franky sat silent. I shook my head. Franky spoke.

Yolonda chuckled. “He says he wants the hat.”

“That's my hat,” said Jamal.

“Give him the hat!” Yolonda and I barked in chorus. Yolonda snatched the hat and set it gently on Franky's head. Franky raised a shaky hand to adjust the brim and spoke. Yolonda said, “He wants to see it in the mirror.”

“When we're done,” I said. “Or I'm leaving now.”

Franky sighed and started. Yolonda told it word for word. “Chucky had the car. He picked up a Westy and a goombah from New York at the city airport. They snaked Jimmy into the car at a restaurant and took him to the Eastern Market. It was late for the market, way after lunch, so everybody was busy loading their shit and not watching nothing. There was a dog-food plant down by there them days. They went in, and it was
closed. A wannabe-made guy from Philly was in there waiting with a rope. Jimmy saw he was there to get what-it-is, and he made to go. The goombah and the wannabe looped the rope around Jimmy's neck, and they pulled from each end on accounta' Jimmy was still a tough number, and they didn't wanna get too close. When they was done, they put Jimmy in this big chipper they use for dog food and spit him in a barrel. Jimmy didn't fill up the barrel so they topped it off with chickens. Feathers and feet, you know, everything. They shipped him to Florida for alligator food. Only good thing is, Jimmy got his last ride in a truck.”

“I heard he got it in a house,” I said. “Shot in the head.”

“The wannabe got it in the house. Stupid shit thought he was going to get made. Chucky went and bought a big fish. He got a deal 'cause the market was closing. He thought it was funny, the shit from Philly not knowing what it meant. He made 'em ride with the damn thing in the back seat next to him, wrapped in newspaper and leaking on the cushions.”

“Guy made a death bed statement,” I said.

“Yeah, he told a lotta lies about Jimmy, that was just the last one. Guess he figured he'd be seeing Jimmy soon. Lots a guys didn't like it how Jimmy got it, Jimmy being a stand-up guy and all. That's why they found that Guinea-goombah chopped up in a barrel, floating off the pier in Jersey. Jimmy still had a lot of friends.”

“That's not what I'm reading in the press, Franky,” I said.

Franky wrestled through some words, waving his hand around. Yolonda said, “The barrel was white. They strapped it to a pallet, and shipped it LTL on Gateway.”

“All right,” I said. I took out my notepad, and Franky calmed down. At the top of the page I'd written “JACK VINCENT—source, Archer Flynt.” Flipping to the next page, I found my notes from court records—Jack Vincent, Salem Avenue, Detroit. “Gateway? Florida?” I said as I wrote.

Franky rested back in his chair and said something that included the word “fuck,” but Yolonda said, “Florida is where is the alligators, but I think they dropped the barrel in the river at Ft. Lauderdale.”

“Tell me about Jack the Lookout,” I said.

“Jack was a rat. Always a rat. Started out a rat and died like a rat.”

“His family would like to know where he is.”

“What family?” asked Yolonda for Franky. “I know all the Vincentis in town. He ain't related.”

“You sure?” I asked.

Frank shook his head, wrestling his body and rocking his wheel chair.
“What, you ask me questions, and you don't think I know what I'm talking about?”

I looked at my watch. We had fifteen minutes. “Great story, Franky. Thanks. Is there something I can get you?”

Franky grumbled something as we started up the hall together. Yolonda laughed and said, “Franky, you know you can't have those kind of visitors.” She rolled him in front of the door so he could see himself in the glass.

“Ride 'em, cowboy,” said Jamal. He reclaimed his hat. Franky snaked a shaky hand after the hat, but Yolonda snatched it and put it back on Franky's head.

“That's my hat,” said Jamal.

“Maybe, if you home when I get there, and you clean,” said Yolonda with a meow in her voice, “maybe you get it back, cowboy.” She gave Jamal a sly wink.

Jamal and I hit the door making long fast steps. “I still get paid?” asked Jamal. “He didn't tell us shit.”

“He told me everything I needed to know.”

“I still gets paid?”

“A yard,” I said. “But you gotta get me to my car before they tow it to the impound lot.”

Jamal flogged all the ponies. My fingerprints are probably still dents in his dash. As he roared onto 1-96 East, he asked, “You think that be true about Jimmy Hoffa?”

“Urban legend,” I said. “At least this story has the charm of being bona fide Teamster gossip.”

• • •

“You're late,” said McNeal. He stood in the alley with a uniformed police officer. A massive black man haunted the sofa we'd dodged in our first trip down the alley. He wore a blue denim jacket that made parentheses, embracing a round Buddha belly.

“Five minutes,” I said. “You told me not to hang around. What took so long?”

“Maurice here,” he said, gesturing to the man on the sofa, “had to color-sand and buff.”

“That a five-thousand dollar paint job!” said Maurice.

“That's three-to-five,” said McNeal. “And with two felonies already, they could hit you with the bitch.”

“I want at least five hundred dollars for the paint and supplies.”

Jamal walked into the shop.

“Ha-bitch-ual criminal,” said McNeal. “You could end up in Lansing painting state police cars that same ugly-ass Michigan blue color for the rest of your life.”

“Who-ee, hot day-yam!” Jamal yelled from inside the shop.

I
FOUND THE LAST LEAD
in a dresser drawer at the Crest Park Motel, under the Gideon's Bible. The telephone book listed a J. Vincent Jr. on Salem Street, in Detroit, the same address I had in my notebook from court records for J. Vincent. I tried the number, got a male voice on an answering machine, and left a message.

Someone banged on the door to my suite. I opened it to find Jamal. He still hadn't been home and looked like secondhand death. I'd had a shower and a shave and had brushed my teeth, but I still felt pretty much like Jamal looked.

“It's after checkout,” said Jamal. “But the manager said he'd give you a break on account a the trouble about your car.”

I'd stopped at the bank. I handed Jamal an envelope with two fresh Benjamins and my business card. “My advice is to finish your degree and get a job as a sworn officer,” I said. “If you end up in Grand Rapids, stop by.”

Jamal folded the envelope and stuffed it in the breast pocket of his shirt without looking at the contents. “I told the manager you'd be coming down. I'll help you with the bags.”

“I hope my car's still down there,” I said.

“Ain't nobody going to steal your ride now,” said Jamal. “The cops can see it six blocks away.”

I put the motel bill on my business account. The manager gave me a
discount coupon for my next stay. Jamal and I piled my luggage in the trunk.

“Damn,” said Jamal. “That paint looks a foot deep.”

“I think my son will like it,” I said. “It's a little too bright for surveillance work.”

“Yeah, they be looking in the mirror and going, like, ‘Please keep following me. I love that car.'”

“Later, cowboy,” I said. “Get some sleep.” I left Jamal with a handshake. Maurice might have been a genius with a spray gun, but his lock-smithing skills were limited to the use of a dent puller. I had to start the Camaro with a screwdriver.

The expressway gremlin had whipped the three o'clock whammy on the Ditch, and I had to row the Camaro out of the Motor City in two-and three-car-length lurches. The paint job lured a boatload of approving honks and waves—and two offers to purchase. One guy rolled up next to me and yelled, “Where do you park that at night?” I didn't get to the Salem address until just after four.

J. Vincent Jr. lived in a brick Dutch Colonial with a giant beech tree in his front yard and “decorative” wrought iron on his windows. Nobody answered the door. I went back to the Camaro, locked the doors, and reclined in the seat. Next thing I knew, an hour had passed and someone was pecking on the window.

I opened my eyes to find a Eurasian man wearing a brown suede jacket showing me a Detroit Police lieutenant's badge. I let the window down.

“You Art Hardin?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said and showed him my ID.

“I got your message,” he said. “Ain't this a little flashy to work in?”

“Long story,” I said.

“What do they call this color?”

“Tangelo,” I said. “When the light hits it right, you can see the gold-flake flame job.”

“Only a couple of guys in town can shoot paint like this.”

“Maurice up on Van Dyke,” I said. “He picked the color.”

J. Vincent Jr. laughed and shook a finger at me. “You're the guy! I heard about that.”