The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy (32 page)

I saw three middle-aged black men, standing near a
pillar. Two wore Houston Rockets ball caps, all looked to be in good
shape.

The P.A. announced, "The greyhounds are entering
the starting box. It's post time."

As I approached the black guys, one said to the
other, "That's what I heard."

"It all come back on Rashid, playing in that
thirty-five-and-over league like he was."

"I know, man, but you ain't that bad yourself."

"The hell I ain't. Doctor says I got to have his
operation, too."

"What operation is that?"

"The one like Rashid have in his knee"

To the closest guy, I said, "Excuse me,"
just as the P.A. chimed in with, "There goes Swifty!"

The black guy held up his hand. "After the race
run out, man."

I watched with him as eight or ten dogs tried in vain
to catch a white, mechanical rabbit on a horizontal bar. The bar was
attached to a motorized cart that rolled on narrow-gauge metal rails
around the inside edge of the track itself. The race was all over in
thirty seconds or so.

"Damn that number Five," said the man I'd
spoken to. "You could time that pig with a sundial."
Turning to me, "Now, what you be wanting?"

"I was wondering if you'd seen Grover Gant."

"Grover?" said the other.

"His mother told me he'd be here."

"Oh, he here, all right," the first guy
gesturing with a parimutuel ticket toward the track. "It ain't
snowing or shit, Grover like to stand by the puppies at the rail,
talk to them."

"Dummy-ass think it help him," said the
other.

As the people standing outside made their way toward
us, I could spot Gant near the fence. "Appreciate it."

The first man let the ticket flutter from his hand to
the floor. "While you out there, ask Grover will he tell that
Five dog to please take himself a dump before the next time he
racing."

"I'l1 do that." I said, moving against the
crowd and toward the track.

Outside, the sun shone brightly from the west as a
commuter train lumbered north on the far side of the grounds. Grover
Gant was doodling with a red Flair pen on his racing form as a white
guy spoke to him.

The P.A. voice said, "We have a field of
juveniles for the next race. Open the floodgates for the first pup, a
clear favorite in the eighth. Post time in eleven minutes."

As I drew close enough to hear the white guy, he was
saying, "Fuck, that's four races in a row without a payoff."

Gant never looked up from his program. "So, what
are you gonna do?"

"I don't know, Grover, but I'm sick of these
goddamn skinny greyhounds. You ever hear of any place races
dalmatians?"

"Dalmatians?" Now Gant did look up. "Why
the fuck would anybody race dalmatians?"

"I don't know. They just look . . . healthier, I
guess."

When Gant shook his head and went back to his form,
the white guy moved off. I waited until he was thirty feet away
before saying, "Nice day to be out in the air."

"Hey, man." Gant shifted his feet to face
me. "Taking my advice, right?"

"Your advice."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Gant swept his hand
toward the track. "Doggies over horses. Cheaper to get in, not
so much hoopla between the races, so the action comes faster. And
there ain't no human factor, remember?"

"I remember. In fact, I'd like to talk with you
about the 'human factor'."

Gant checked his watch. A big, bright one, with lots
of bells and whistles on the face of it. “I got time before I have
to lay my bet down on the next race."

"New watch?"

He looked at it again. "Kind of."

"Your ship came in."

"Say what?"

"The insurance on your brother's life."

"Oh, yeah. That." Gant made his tone even
more casual. "Guess I got kind of mad at you over to the house."

"Kind of. The insurance must let you clear up a
lot of debts."

The P.A. announcer said, "Post time in just
under eight minutes." as a cloud came over Gant's eyes. "Meaning
like what?"

I decided not to mention the scene I'd witnessed with
Trinh and Huong at the coffee shop. "You said you'd borrowed
from your brother. Now you can repay the estate."

"Oh, right, right, right." The sly smile.
"So, what you want to know about the 'human factor'?"

“
I'm still trying to figure out who shot your
brother."

A shrug that settled into a laugh. "Man, I told
you last time. The police, they got the mother'."

"Except they have the wrong one."

No more laugh. "Now what you mean?"

"Just what I said. Alan Spaeth didn't do it."

“
Aw, man. Come on, come on, come on. You didn't see
that dude in Woodrow's office there the way I did. He was like a
maniac. Ranting and raving."

"Everybody gets mad. You got mad at me in your
mother's house. Does that mean you'd kill me?"

The sly smile again. "Got no reason to kill you.
I'm what they call 'a man of wealth and taste' now."

Somehow it sounded better when Mick Jagger used to
sing it.

Just then, men and boys wearing red windbreakers
began walking leashed and muzzled greyhounds toward the starting gate
at the far left end of the track. As the dog wearing number “7"
came even with us, he stopped and lifted a leg.

Grover Gant smiled wider. "Seven, you get all
that out of your system, now."

I said, "Your brother wasn't the only one
killed."

The wider smile froze. "Hey, man, you keep
confusing me."

"Confusion isn't the half of it, my friend. The
guy Spaeth says would be his alibi was found dead this morning."

"Alibi?"

I thought that was an odd part of my statement for
Gant to home in on. "Spaeth claims he spent the night your
brother was shot getting drunk with a man named Michael Mantle. This
morning the police found Mantle dead in an abandoned building."

“
I don't go into no abandoned buildings, man."
Gant glanced left, right, and behind him. "Life's dangerous
enough when there's people around you."

Which made me wonder who Gant might worry would spot
him, provided Grover in Wonderland had used part of the insurance
proceeds to pay off the balance of his "coffee shop" debt
to Nguyen Trinh.

I heard a lot of yowling and barking from the
starting gate. The handlers in the red windbreakers were all jogging
up the track toward us.

Grover Gant said, "I got to put my bet down."

As he turned, I stepped in front of him.

"Hey, man, it's almost post time."

I said, “Missing one race won't kill you."

"Shit, shit, shit." but he stayed with me.

"So, to sum up, you don't know a thing about the
departed Mr. Mantle."

"Don't know," said Gant, "and don't
want to know."

"The police got a tip, telephoned into a
hospital."

"Last I heard, hospital can't help no dead man."

"Clever thing, though. You kill somebody and
want him found at the right time, you call a number that doesn't
tape-record your voice as it comes in over the telephone."

"Yeah, well, that leaves me off whatever hook
you trying to put me on, man."

"How do you mean?"

"One thing I ain't—and ain't never been—is
clever. Otherwise, I wouldn't be needing Woodrow to die, put me on
Easy Street, you hear what I'm saying?"

Unfortunately I did. And worse, as the fat man
hustled toward the betting counter, I believed him. Setting up what
had to be an elaborate frame of Alan Spaeth—down to the indirect
reporting of one body on that road and another in that
cellar—required brains, and Grover Gant didn't seem nearly clever
enough to pull it off.

However, we both knew
somebody who was.

* * *

I waited in the parking lot until the crowd began
streaming out and back to their cars. As the lot emptied, I spotted
Gant's rust-bucket Chevy three rows down and as many over, in the
same "Preferred" section I was in. Finally, Gant himself
made his way through the gate, shimmering like the proverbial bowlful
of jelly as he waddled to his car. Once there, Gant opened the
driver's door and climbed in. After some blue smoke belched from the
exhaust pipe, the old Chevy joined the line of cars turning right,
back toward the city.

I started up and followed.

* * *

We went down IA, negotiating the traffic rotaries and
driving almost sedately. I expected Gant to take the Sumner Tunnel,
which would lead him to the Central Artery and the most direct path
home to his mother's house. Instead he took the Tobin Bridge, then
Storrow Drive along the Charles River. We went past Harvard
University and the turn for Harvard Square, eventually getting off
Soldiers Field Road in Brighton. Gant cruised through half of a
warehouse district near St. Elizabeth's Hospital before pulling into
a narrow parking area with angled white lines. There was only one
other vehicle in the lot.

A Mercedes sedan, green in color.

I couldn't make out the license plate, so as Grover
Gant left his car and walked in a side door, I checked the address
Larry Cosentino had given me back at the Gang Unit. I was indeed
sitting outside the offices of Nugey Trinh and Associate, Limited.

But not limited by much. I'd have bet even my own
money on that.
 

Chapter 17

 
THE SIDE DOOR opened silently for me, but the
hinge complained a little as it closed. I got some sounds of
forklifts and hand dollies from behind an interior door on the first
floor, but there were also heavy footfalls at the top of the shrouded
staircase to my left. I waited and heard a metallic knock, Grover
Gant saying, "It's me." Then a swishing noise before the
sound of a door clicking shut.

I took the first half-flight to a landing and, seeing
no one above me, climbed the rest of the stairs to the second floor.
There was a heavy steel door for what seemed an office, so I walked
up to it. Putting my ear against the jamb, I recognized Nguyen
Trinh's voice saying, "Not enough, Grover."

I drew my Chief's Special before trying the knob.
Unlocked. As I pushed hard, the door flung open, banging violently
against the wall. I leveled the snubbed barrel of the revolver about
heart high on Trinh.

Seated behind a desk, he stared at my gun. Grover
Gant, in a chair across the desk from Trinh, twisted around to look
at me, too. For just a micro-second, I registered Oscar Huong looming
over Gant from behind before Huong literally sprung vertically three
feet off the floor, spinning in the air to face me.

Huong's feet hadn't yet hit the ground again when
Trinh snapped off, "Oscar, no!"

Huong landed in a martial arts stance, his
body—shaved head on down—vibrating like a tuning fork from the
strain of obeying Trinh against his apparent urge to feed the Smith
to me an inch at a time.

Keeping the muzzle on his boss, I said, "Listen
to the man, Oscar."

Trinh picked up. "Mr. Private Eye here, he ain't
gonna shoot me, long as you don't do nothing."

Oscar's words came out like they were being dragged
across a gravel driveway. “He does, he's dead."

I said, "Without this gun, Oscar, you'd have
maimed me by now. I just want us to have a nice little talk."

Trinh nodded very slightly. "You followed
Grover."

"Yes, but I had the address here anyway."

"How you get it?"

"Connections."

Another slight nod. "Oscar?"

Huong didn't move.

Trinh said, "Oscar, ease off. Let Cuddy come in,
sit a while, we find out what he want."

This time Huong seemed to calm down. I realized that
in the stance, his sports coat had been bulging here, there, and
everywhere, like the old Incredible Hulk television show, Lou
Ferrigno bursting out of the late Bill Bixby's clothes. Now Huong
just looked normal.

Meaning homicidal.

But he shook down his sleeves above the huge hands
before standing back against the wall.

Trinh did that wristy Macarena flourish toward the
other empty chair across from his desk. "And you can put the gun
away, too."

Sitting down, I kept the barrel on target. "I
don't think so."

Gant spoke to me for the first time. "Mother-fucker,
mother-fucker, mother-fucker, I thought you was going to get my ass
killed."

"Be patient, Grover." said Trinh. "It
could still happen"

Then, in my direction, "So what you come here
for, Mr. Private Eye?"

"I thought maybe we'd go over all the ways you
were involved in Woodrow Gant's life. And death."