Hard Rock (A Hardboiled Private Investigator Mystery Series): John Rockne Mysteries 2 (5 page)

Chapter Twelve

He loved America.  In all of its abandoned, depraved and mangled beauty.  He was a hunter returning to the terrain upon which he had feasted so many times.

A question occurred to him.  Had his idol seen America the same way?  Had Keith Richards looked at America as a huge plump cow waiting to be chopped up into beautiful thick steaks? 

He knew Keith had homes all around the world.  The guitarist was probably the most famous rock star of all time.  Of course he was a globetrotter.

The Spook seemed to recall an interview with Keith in his home at that time.  It was in Massachusetts.  But he also knew that Keith spent a great time in the Caribbean.   He made a decision right then and there. On his next research trip between jobs he would make a point of really trying to learn how Keith viewed America.  Mostly in terms of musical conquest. Did he see it as his greatest? Or just another notch on his Fender?

Traffic was light coming out of the tunnel into Detroit, and The Spook easily navigated his way onto Woodward Avenue.  He didn’t have far to go.

Detroit was one of his best job markets.  When he had left government work and gone freelance, his first jobs had been in the Motor City.  Over the years, he had completed nearly two dozen assignments in Detroit, all pulled off with flawless ease.  Detroit was a great city to be a person who killed other people for a living.  There were so many murders and the police force was so understaffed, investigation was almost always minimal.

He did quite a bit of work in Chicago as well, and some in both New York and Washington, D.C.  Especially once word got out about his background and his extreme professionalism.  But Detroit and Chicago were his bread and butter. 

He loved Detroit.  The capital of the Rust Belt, they said.  But it was a great driving city, mainly because there were very few pedestrians.  No tourists at all.  Try that in Boston or D.C. 

It didn’t take him long to find the Woodward Athletic and Social Club.  He parked the Buick a few blocks away on a busy street.  He pulled off the second shirt tied around his midsection and used it to wipe the makeup off his face.  He spit out the cotton balls that he’d stuffed into his cheeks, and ran his fingers through his hair.

In the rearview mirror, he looked a little crazy.  His hair was still partially gray, but without Irv Klapper’s big glasses he looked a lot younger.

He rolled down the windows and left the key in the ignition.  Even though his fingerprints had been altered so many times they no longer matched anything on file, he wiped down the steering wheel and door handle, the only things he had touched.  By his estimation, the car would be stolen, stripped and abandoned in less than twelve hours.  The gun he had stashed in the trunk he decided to leave.  There would be no need for it now.  He left the car, saw a garbage can across the street, crossed over and dumped Irv Klapper’s shirt, glasses and passport into the trash. 

It was cooler now; the first real feel of fall was in the air.  Some litter skidded down the street blown by the wind.  A homeless guy pushed a shopping cart over the curb.

The door to the club was held open for him and he walked in.  He nodded to the man at the front desk and headed straight for the locker room.  The club was one he frequented occasionally when he was in Detroit, which happened to be at least three or four times a year.  Some of his clients preferred to meet at the club, and it was easier if he was a member.

The locker room was empty when he entered and went straight to locker number 23.  It was a half-locker, paid in full for two years and operated with a combination as opposed to a key.  Which came in handy when you were forcibly removed from your belongings.

He keyed the combination, opened the door and pulled out the black duffel bag.  Inside was a change of clothes, all dark colors and a second bag, a shaving kit.  Inside the shaving kit was a wallet with a Michigan drivers license and credit cards in the name of Dave Mather.  The Spook smiled.  He always chose names of Old West gunfighters for his backup identities. Dave Mather was known as “Mysterious Dave” because he had large gaps in his biography that no one could fill.

In addition to the wallet, there was three thousand dollars in cash and a .22 magnum auto with a silencer.  He grabbed the bag and a towel, took a long, hot shower.  His wounds were feeling better and he was careful not to let the shower spray reopen them.

Afterward, he changed into his new clothes, unscrewed the silencer from the pistol and slipped it into a pocket of his jacket.  Next, he stuck the pistol down the back of his jeans and threw Klapper’s shirt into the wastebasket in the locker room bathroom.

The remaining items in the duffel bag were three pay as you go cell phones with a charger.  He put two in the other pocket of his jacket and kept one in his hand. 

He walked out to the lobby, found a chair with an outlet nearby, plugged in the charger and then plugged the charger cable into the phone.

Once it had enough juice to power up, he dialed a number from memory.

It was answered on the first ring.

He smiled.

Someone
really wanted to talk to him.

Chapter Thirteen

“That’s all he said.”

Amanda Collins shook her head.  “That he’d met someone. And Grosse Pointe didn’t seem as bad.  Which obviously led me to believe it was a Grosse Pointer he was talking about.”

She finally looked up at me, and I could see the emotions waging war inside her.  But her face remained steady.  She wasn’t going to cry like she almost had back at her home in Birmingham.

The next question was very difficult to ask, but I had no choice.

“Did you get a feeling if the person was male or female?”

She actually gasped lightly at the intrusiveness of the question.  But the fact was there had been a lot of speculation about Benjamin’s sexual orientation.  The young man had very few friends and a totally ambiguous social presence, so no one could determine his orientation.  The night of his murder, his killer had adopted a very effeminate affectation.  Had it meant anything?  No one knew.

Amanda recovered immediately from my query.  She had to know that knowing the gender of a murder victim’s possible love interest was very important to the case.

“I was about to ask why that mattered, but then I realized why you asked,” she said. “But the answer is no.  I don’t know. Benjamin and I never talked specifically about his private life.  And we certainly didn’t talk about mine.  I can honestly say I don’t know.”

I believed her.

Unfortunately, while the information was intriguing, it really didn’t get me anywhere.  It was too incomplete.

“Anything else you can think of?” I asked.

Amanda shook her head, drained the last of her beer and handed me the empty. 

“Another?” I asked.  She shook her head.  “I really have to be going.  I’m not sure if what I told you was much of a help.”

“It could potentially be a huge help,” I said.  “But we need to know more.”

“I know.  The problem is I don’t know anything more.  Which is why I never told the police about it.  I figured it wouldn’t do any good on its own and I had nothing else to add.  But I figured with you, if new information was coming in.  Maybe you could make sense of it.  Or connect it to something else.”

She got to her feet.

“I hope I can,” I said.  “I’m not going to stop now.”

“If I think of anything else I’ll call you,” she said.

“Thank you for stopping by. It…” I stumbled a little bit for the right words but she saved me.

“It’s okay. I just want to make the person…”  She seemed to lose the thought.  “I just don’t want them to get away with it.  It’s just not right.”

She turned and walked out of the office, closing the door behind her.

I waited a minute or two, then collected the empties, put them in recycling and locked up the office.

Sometimes I walked home from the office, seeing as how it was less than a mile away.  But now I felt like driving so I went to the Taurus, fired it up, and drove down to Jefferson Ave.  I followed Jefferson until it curved down to the lake’s edge and became Lake Shore Drive.  I sort of knew where I was going but took my time getting there.  Night was falling but there was enough light to give the surface of the lake a silver sheen, with the far edge of Canada framing the image like a bordered canvas.

I followed the water’s edge for nearly a mile before I turned off onto a street I knew all too well.  The homes here were substantial, nearly all of them with circular driveways that featured a BMW, Porsche or Mercedes-Benz.  A lot of fans of the German auto industry here, which was funny because more than a few Detroit auto executives lived in this area.

It didn’t take long before I found a place to park near the exact place where I’d handed Benjamin Collins over to his killer.  I parked the Taurus, rolled down the windows and sat.

I wondered again about the location.  For the thousandth time I wondered the same thing.

Why here?
 

Why had the call come in from here?  Why had Benjamin been running around in the cold? Why had the contract killer been
here
?

A quick look around the houses showed me nothing I hadn’t already known.  Big estates, most of them five or six-plus bedrooms with probably the same amount of bathrooms.  Three-car garages usually tucked discretely around the back.  Wide, perfectly landscaped lawns.

It wasn’t unheard of to see a vintage American car in some of the driveways.  Sixties-era Corvettes for example, seemed to be a hit with this crowd.

Still, it had always bothered me.  In general, homicide in Grosse Pointe was very rare.  But this particular location had always seemed so unlikely to me.  And now that I figured the murder had been a hit, it seemed even more bizarre.

There was really no point in coming here.  I still did it occasionally when I was struggling with my past.  But honestly, I wasn’t looking for fresh insights. I’d already been over this area so many times I practically could navigate it in my sleep.

Lots of doctors and lawyers and auto executives here.   Even some players from the Detroit Lions, supposedly.

Something niggled at my brain.  The Detroit Lions.  Where I had just heard something about them?

I wasn’t really much of a football fan-

Tripp Collins.

I suddenly sat up straighter.

Tripp Collins.  What was it he’d said?

I searched my memory. 

A scroll through our conversation led me to the moment when he was talking about his clients.

It finally came to me.  He’d rattled off some of his types of clients.  Mining magnates, auto czars and
NFL players
.

Was it possible that one of Tripp Collins’ clients had a place here?

And if so, what did it mean?  Was it just a huge coincidence? A young man is murdered in the same neighborhood where one of his uncle’s clients lived? 

When I put it into words in mind, it seemed like no big deal.  Grosse Pointe was a small community.  People lived side-by-side with their doctors, their attorneys, their teachers.

Then again, it could mean
something.

That was enough for me.  I put the Taurus in gear and dug out my cell phone.

The call went straight to voicemail. Tripp Collins must have either turned his phone off or he was on the line.  Another possibility was that he’d seen my number and chosen to ignore it. That was okay. I had a pretty good backup plan.

The husband of one of Anna’s friends worked for the Lions and he was a helpful kind of guy.  And he owed me a favor because I’d helped him unload about three tons of landscaping stones while our wives supervised with margaritas in their hands.

So point one, he owed me a favor.

And point two, I had his cell phone number.

I called and left a message asking if he could look up home addresses and tell me if any players had homes in the area I’d just visited. 

A geography note here:  Grosse Pointe is divided into four sections.  Starting at the southernmost end and going north along the lake, the communities in order are Grosse Pointe Park, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Farms and Grosse Pointe Shores.  The homes I was interested in would be in Grosse Pointe Shores.

I figured my buddy could narrow that down pretty quickly.

It might not turn out to be anything.

But I was moving forward and that was the important thing.

Chapter Fourteen

The man he met with wasn’t The Man.

The Spook knew that.  It was simple tradecraft and common sense.

No, with the short crew-cut of steel-gray hair and weathered, lined face, the man looked more like a security guard than a wealthy individual who frequently employed specialists like him.

He knew the man as Mr. Ricks.  Head of corporate security.  The man everyone in the company whispered about when having drinks after work.  As in,
you don’t ever want to be invited to a meeting with Mr. Ricks.  You’ll never come back.

With a view of the Detroit River, the bar they had chosen as their meeting place was a relic of the Motor City’s better days.  It was mostly empty, save for a few diehards nursing their drinks.  It was too early for happy hour, too late for lunch.

It was a drinker’s bar, with a brass rail and tiered shelves of liquor bottles.  A jukebox sat at one end, a seating area with doors to a patio on the other.  The doors were closed and the patio was empty.

Too cold to sit outside and the view wasn’t worth the effort.

Mr. Ricks had chosen a booth along the far wall facing the bar.  A well-chosen spot with good views of both sets of doors.  The Spook liked his style.

“I was worried about you,” Mr. Ricks said.  He smiled.  The kind of half-grin that has nothing to do with humor. 

“You shouldn’t worry, it ages you,” the Spook said.  “And you can’t afford that.”

Mr. Ricks had a glass of whiskey, and the Spook ordered a beer.

Mr. Ricks took a sip of his drink.  “If anyone looks like a few miles of bad road, I would argue it’s you,” he said.  “I heard you had a little bit of a sailing mishap.”

A waitress put a mug of beer in front of the Spook.  He waited until she left, and then he raised the glass and took a drink.

“The wind can change direction quite fast out there,” he finally answered.  “The important thing is getting back to shore.”

“I hope you got a refund on your ticket,” Mr. Ricks said.  “I know my company offers money back guarantees when customers aren’t satisfied.”

The Spook smiled.  He wasn’t surprised at the content of the message Mr. Ricks was delivering.  And he wasn’t even disappointed.  He’d been around the business far too long for any of that.

“Refund is such a dirty word,” he said.

“I agree,” Mr. Ricks offered.  “There’s a different word I like a lot better.  Extension.”

“What do you like about it?”

“Well, it’s so flexible,” Mr. Ricks said.  “Refund is quite abrupt.  I say if a job isn’t completed to everyone’s satisfaction, the service provider should be given an extension to finish the job right.  Everyone wins.”

The Spook let that thought hang in the air for a moment.

“That only makes sense if the original task wasn’t completed,” he finally said.

A man and woman walked in and went straight to the bar where the bartender greeted them by name. 

Mr. Ricks nodded.  The Spook waited while the man across the table from him weighed his words carefully.

“The situation is ongoing,” Mr. Ricks said.  “It has not been completed.”

“I would point out that the original contract has been permanently completed.  A parallel development has arisen.  That is the only situation that is ongoing.  And if a service provider is tasked with an ongoing project, the funding should be ongoing as well.”

The Spook could spew this kind of corporate bullshit all day long.  The CIA had nearly bored him to death with it.  His beer was empty and he had no desire for a second. 

“I certainly understand your position,” Mr. Ricks said.  He rattled the ice cubes in his glass.  “However, I don’t necessarily agree with it.”

The great thing about being a freelancer, the Spook thought, was freedom.  The liberty to walk out of a meeting whenever you wanted to.  When you worked for a company you didn’t have that option.  But now, he could see that this discussion was over.  That the matter had been decided.

“It was a pleasure discussing sound business practices with you Mr. Ricks,” he said.  “Please give me a call if you need any more clarification.”

The Spook slid from the booth and walked outside.  There was a blues bar a few blocks over he’d gone to many times but it was closed now.  Its windows were boarded up and all of its signs taken down.  Weeds grew over the sidewalk in front.

He walked toward it, then circled around and approached the parking lot to his right. It was easy to spot the Cadillac Escalade backed into the space next to the exit, the engine idling.

The Spook waited a moment, figuring Mr. Ricks was paying the bill inside.  A seagull flew overhead, away from the river.  Probably heading into the city.  Plenty of garbage to pick through.

It only took a few minutes for Mr. Ricks to appear.  He approached the big SUV on the passenger side, opened the door and climbed inside.  The driver, who was no doubt there to provide security for Mr. Ricks, turned his head to say something to his boss.  The Spook left his vantage point, walked to the driver’s side of the SUV and drew his automatic with the silencer attached.  He shot the driver in the head.  Mr. Ricks struggled in his seat, already having drawn his seat belt across his chest, and attempted to draw his weapon.  The Spook shot him in the head, too.  Twice.  One round went directly into his left eye, the other just above it.

“No refunds,” the Spook said.

He left them in their Cadillac, walked a block over to his car, got in and drove away.