Michael Lister - Soldier 03 - The Big Hello (13 page)

“I know,” I said.

“You know what?”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked.

“Why’d I do what?”

“Did you make just enough to put Gladys in Oak Cove or did you get some money to retire on too?”

Henry Folsom opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

If possible he looked even older now, his face and ears even more oblong, his features even more feeble, his world-weary eyes even more sunken.

“What is thirty pieces of silver with inflation?” I asked.

“I don’t care about money,” he said. “You know that. Only Gladys. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. You understand that. I know you do. You don’t know how bad it’s been, the hell I’ve been through with her. You don’t know because you’ve been so wrapped up in your own little world you don’t know what’s going on in the real one. Hell, there’s a war going on. People are dying all around us.”

“You tried to make me one of them.”

He shook his head. “I never did.”

The room, the hall, the entire hospital was as quiet as death, only our tense, dry voices piercing the veil of silence.

“How can you say that?”

“What is it exactly you think I did?” he said.

“Why don’t you tell me.”

“I let the mayor get Gladys a place in Oak Cove.”

“Buy her a place,” I said. “Buy you.”

“I knew what that would mean.”

So this was the sound of idols falling down, I thought. The end of mentors and once great men was no different than the end of anything else. Paltry. Pathetic. Kind of quiet. Whimpers not bangs. What a pitiable piece of work a man is.

“That he was buying
you
,” I said again.

“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. That there might come a time when he’d want me to turn a blind eye to something or do him a small favor. That’s all. And that’s all I did.”

“Guess you and I have different definitions of that word
small
.”

“I made a phone call,” he said. “I kept my mouth shut. Nothing more.”

“A phone call?”

“He calls me middle of the night says he needs a cop in Tallahassee.”

“Not just any cop,” I said. “A compromised cop like you. A cop for sale.”

“I gave him Dana Shelby.”

“And it got him killed.”

“That’s not on me.”

“Is Lauren being kidnapped? All of Harry’s crimes? De Grasse’s dead girls? Is anything? What do you take responsibility for?”

“For doing what I had to for my wife,” he said. “And I’d do it again.”

“What was Harry Lewis’s connection to Lee Perkins?”

“What connects all men like them? Money and power. Black market stuff. It’s big business––biggest since hooch during prohibition. You think I care about that? You think I want one dirty dime from their treason? I don’t. And I haven’t taken any.”

“Except the dirty dimes paid to Oak Cove,” I said. “Where you think they came from? It’s blood money and you know it.”

“You wouldn’t do the same for Lauren?”

I didn’t say anything.

The lack of light in the dim room seemed to have changed somehow, as if shifting shadows had––as if everything had shifted.

“You haven’t killed for her and worse? And she’s just your girlfriend––actually, another man’s wife. Gladys is my everything. Has been for thirty-three years.”

“Do you know how many people have died?” I said. “What about De Grasse’s victims?”

“A hundred of Harry’s whores couldn’t come close to my Gladys, but I had nothing to do with any of that. And I tried to arrest Flaxon tonight.”

“You tried to kill him to cover up your crimes, but he was faster.”

“I …”

“Do you know what Perkins is doing to Lauren?”

“I have nothing to do with any of that. I told you. All I did was call Dana. Nothing else.”

“And since I found out Lauren’s alive?” I said.

“Nothing. What?”

“Trying to cover your crime. You dropped a dime on me and Clip. Have tried a few times to have us killed. Out on Highway 20, at the Panther Room, the bus station.”

“No. That’s Perkins. Not me.”

“Who told Perkins we were heading to Tallahassee? Who let him know we were going to the Panther Room? At least, you thought we were, but we split up so you only got Shelby.”

“I haven’t … I didn’t do any of that. I just …”

“You sounded so shocked when I called you after the shoot-out at the bus station diner. You thought I’d be dead. So stop lying. You’re more involved, knew more, did more, than you’re saying.”

He didn’t respond.

“Who put Perkins in touch with Burke?”

“You don’t think a man like Perkins knows a hundred men like Burke?”

“There’s only one man like Burke in this area,” I said. “And you put him onto me and De Grasse and––”

“I’m sorry, son,” he said. “I really am. I didn’t intend any of this. I just … I was just doing what I could for my wife, what I had to for the love of my life.”

He had been like a father to me. His use of the word
son
reminded me of that. It also triggered something inside me. Shook loose an image––actually several of them. In quick succession I saw my dad, Darryl Collins, Henry Folsom, and Ray Parker. Since Dad’s death and Collins’s cold control and indifference, I had been searching for a father figure and I had chosen badly. Twice. The hole inside me left by my dad’s departure had left me vulnerable and blind and had cost me plenty.

“You ever call me son again I think I will have to kill you,” I said.

“Jimmy.”

I shook my head and turned to leave.

“I’m a good cop,” he said. “Think about all the good I’ve done, all the people I’ve helped, all the criminals off the streets because of me.”

“You were a good cop,” I said. “At one time. No more. You were the best. Now, you’re a criminal. You’ve become the very thing you hate. You’re compromised, corrupt. You’re no different than Harry and Perkins and all the rest.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Get Lauren back,” I said. “Or die trying.”

I took a few steps, then turned back around.

“Oh, and in case y’all do succeed and kill me, forget what I said earlier about you finding Lauren and taking care of her. She’d be better off dead.”

“You kill ’im on the spot?” Clip asked.

I shook my head.

“Hell’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Take longer than the drive to Tallahassee to tell you.”

“You think he callin’ Perkins right now tellin’ him we on the way?”

“I honestly don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. Depends on if he has anything else to cover up, if he thinks we’ve told anyone or will. I just can’t say.”

“Could if you’d’a killed ’im,” he said. “Dead man can’t dial.”

I laughed.

“Maybe time to change this shit to the Jones Detective Agency,” he said. “Things be simpler I in charge.”

“No doubt.”

“So we don’t know if we walkin’ into a ambush,” he said.

“Think we have to assume we are.”

He nodded. “You gots a plan?”

“Was hoping to come up with one on the drive over.”

“Do I need to be quiet and let you … ah … formulate?”

“Tell me what you’d do,” I said.

“First I’d’a killed the old cop,” he said.

“For doing what I’m doing?” I said. “Anything for the woman he loves.”

“So you the same as him?”

“Haven’t found a line I won’t cross yet.”

“You coulda shot Burke in the back when he was leaving your office,” he said. “You coulda snuffed out the little bit of life left in that old cop right there in his hospital bed.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m swell.”

“He got bought off by a fuckin’ dirty politician,” he said. “He been lettin’ people get killed to cover it up ever since. He helpin’ a black market motherfucker profiting off the death and misery of others––robbing the poor to fatten the rich.”

We fell quiet.

I thought about what he had said. Maybe he was right. But even if he was, I understood the impulse behind what Henry had done.

We rode along in silence for a long while, our car the only one on the long, lonely highway.

“Got anything?” he asked eventually.

“Not much, no,” I said. “Narrowed it down to a few options.”

“Yeah?”

“We go in alone or we go in with backup.”

“Wow,” he said. “Scary how good you are at this.”

“I know.”

“Thought you said a few?” he said.

“Couple of different options on the backup,” I said, “so I don’t count that as just one.”

“What they?”

“Get Collins to do a raid,” I said. “Or get some private help.”

“Such as?”

“How ’bout the fool you knocked out earlier tonight and some of his friends?”

“Turn the negroes loose up in that whites-only joint?” he said, nodding, seeming to relish the idea. “You invite either group to the party––the cops or the negroes––you lose control of the situation. They both trouble. Just be different kinds.”

“Was thinking of using them only if we already lost control of the situation … as a sort of last resort. Not backup so much as way backup. But you’re right, the risk is too great to Lauren.”

“You think he got her at the hotel, or somewhere else?”

I shrugged. “No way to know. That’s another reason not to involve others.”

“Downside is we outgunned and outmanned, just go in and get our asses killed.”

“You wake me up twice in one night,” Lee Perkins said. “It’s unprecedented. I’ll give you that.”

We were back in the empty Cypress Lounge of the Floridan Hotel on Monroe. He was still in the same silk pajamas, house slippers, and robe.

Though just having been awakened again, though it was nearly dawn, his dark, oiled hair was perfectly in place, his small, dark, dead eyes, wide awake.

“As early as you go to bed,” I said, “I’d think you’d be about to get up anyway.”

“I go to bed early. What of it. I sleep in. I can afford to. Got nothing to do with you. Like I said, I should have bumped you off for disturbing me the first time––”

“It’s not like you haven’t tried,” I said.

“––and here you are again,” he said, finishing his thought with a small smile twitching at the corner of his thin lips.

“Sorry to interrupt.”

“Speaking of bumps,” he said, “the hell happen to your head? You didn’t look so good the first time you woke me up tonight. Now … well, now you look a lot worse.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “About to be great.”

“And you won’t know when I have you rubbed out,” he said, “’cause you’ll be dead.”

His voice was low and flat, monotone and menacing.

“You know why I’m here,” I said. “You know what I want.”

“Forty thousand,” he said.

“What?”

“I could make a lot more, but you told me that sweet story about you two kids and you showed respect by not coming in with cops and guns and threats. And you left your nigger outside this time. I like that. So, I’ll take a loss on my investment and you can have her for forty-thousand.”

“Is she here?” I asked. “Can I see her?”

“She is here. If you’re worried about her being defiled, she is not––at least no more than she already was. She’s still convalescing. Actually, I didn’t even add in my expenses related to that. Well, no matter. I’ll be a fool for love too. Why not? Seems everybody is these days.”

“Can I see her?” I asked.

“Oh, did I forget to answer you on that?” he said. “No, you may not.”

“Will you take a check?” I asked.

The amused little smile danced at the corner of his thin lips again. “My business is cash only I’m afraid.”

“An IOU then,” I said.

“You’re beginning to strain my patience, Mr. Riley.”

“How much are you worth?” I asked.

Without the slightest hesitation he said, “Four million and change.”

I nodded and thought about it.

“A little less with what I pay this guy,” he said as Burke walked into the room. “Took you long enough to get here.”

“Takes what it takes,” Burke said. “I came straight. Soldier,” he said, nodding toward me.

“Burke,” I said.

He walked over and stood close to where Perkins was sitting.

“So,” Perkins said, “we doing business or shall Mr. Burke see you to your car?”

“Would you entertain an offer?”

“Look, I’m a businessman. If the offer’s good enough I won’t just entertain it, I’ll show it the time of its life.”

“I’m prepared to offer four million,” I said. “And change.”

This time there wasn’t just the hint of a smile but the full-blown, thin-lipped mean thing itself.

“My life for the girl’s,” he said. “You’d be way overpaying if you had mine to offer, which you don’t. So it is amusing, but that is all.”

He stood and turned toward Burke. “I’m going to bed. Take care of this for me, would ya?”

I stood too.

“One more offer,” I said.

“Yes?” he said, a weary frown on his face.

“Old-fashioned barter,” I said.

“You have nothing I want,” he said.

“You sure?”

“What then? Spill. You’re quickly becoming tiresome.”

“Your sister,” I said.

“But you don’t have her,” he said.

“But we do,” Clip said from the open doorway behind them.

They both turned to see Clip holding Doris Perkins in front of him, his gun to her head.

He was holding her just like we had discussed, in the exact spot I had told him.

While I had been talking to Perkins, he had snuck in and up to her room. It was the best plan I could come up with and so far it was working just like I had hoped.

Doris was disheveled and drowsy, maybe even drugged. Above heavy, hooded lids, her hair stood out on the top and left side of her head.

Clip began easing into the room, pushing Doris before him, her slippers shuffling on the floor.

“Pull your guns out slowly and drop them on the floor,” Clip said.

“I can take him out,” Burke whispered to Perkins.

“Are you certain?” Perkins said.

Burke didn’t respond.

“Sorry,” Perkins said. “Do it.”

“Now,” Clip said. “Or I splatter her brains all over that bar right there.”

“Okay,” Burke said. “Okay.”

He began withdrawing his weapon and I knew he intended to shoot Clip, not drop it to the floor.

As he did, I withdrew the small revolver in my waistband at the small of my back, stepped forward, and back-shot both men––Burke first, then Perkins. I squeezed off one round each in the back of each man’s head. Dead center in the back of the head.

Two quick pops. Two bodies crumpled to the floor.

Trading my honor, my code, my character for my life, my love, my Lauren.

Neither man died immediately. Both writhed and gurgled a bit, but not for long.

A short, dark-haired man ran in, his gun drawn.

“What’s goin’––” he started.

Clip turned and shot him in the face.

Doris had yet to really react.

I stepped over her brother and walked toward her.

“Where is Lauren?” I said.

“What?” she mumbled breathlessly. “Who?”

“Lauren,” I said. “Where is Lauren? The girl from the hospital. Where does your brother have Lauren?”

“Lee?” she said.

“Yes. Lee. Where does Lee have Lauren? Take us to her room.”

“Pretty Lauren,” she said.

“Yes. Pretty Lauren. Where is she?”

“Sick Lauren,” she said.

“Where is she?”

“Her room … Her room’s beside mine,” she said.

I took off running.