Cop Town (14 page)

“Maybe you see people who make their living in nontraditional ways?”

He smiled. “I’m Italian, sweetheart. You can talk to me about pimps.”

Maggie smiled back. “I want you to know if you heard something, you could tell me. I could send it up the line. No one would have to know where it came from. I would protect you. And there’s a reward, so …”

Salmeri was still smiling. He put both his hands over hers. “You know, sweetheart, I see your car outside my window two, three times a day. You come in here and smile with your pretty face, and it lights up the whole joint. And yet I am always thinking to myself, ‘Why doesn’t that girl let me do her dry cleaning?’ ” He stopped her from answering. “I figure it’s because you don’t think it’s right.”

Maggie wasn’t going to pick sides. “I do all the laundry at my house. I know it’s not easy. And it sucks even more when you know you’re doing it for free.”

He laughed, but still said, “It never hurts to have a police officer for a friend.”

“You don’t have to buy me, Mr. Salmeri. I’m just doing my job.” Maggie was aware that Kate was watching her intently. “We should get back to work. Think about what I said.”

“Hold up.” Salmeri pulled out a cigar box from under the counter. He opened the lid. There were lots of small plastic baggies inside, the kind that dealers used for drugs. Apparently, Salmeri used them to hold items he’d found in people’s pockets.

“Here.” He handed Maggie a clear bag with the name
Wesley
scrawled across the front. Inside were two quarters, a dime, and a black matchbook with four matches left.

“Dabbler’s,” Maggie read off the matchbook cover. The script had a swoosh under it like the old Atlanta Braves logo. No phone number. No address. She asked Salmeri, “You ever heard of the place?”

“Sorry. Never heard of it or seen a matchbook from there before.”

“Do you have a Yellow Pages I can look at?”

He pulled a thick phone book off the shelf behind the counter. “Just came last month.”

Maggie thumbed to the
D
’s. She traced her finger down the lines. No Dabbler’s was listed. She would have to ask around to see if anybody knew the place. Businesses popped up all the time around the city, and the only way you could get their address was through an official request to the phone company or by running into someone who happened to know.

“Sorry.” Salmeri had been watching her intently. “Maybe they’re new?”

“Maybe.” Maggie closed the phone book. “Thank you.”

“I’ll keep an ear out for you,” he offered. “You’re right. People say things around me. Maybe I can make some discreet inquiries.”

“Very discreet,” she told him. “Don’t get yourself into trouble.”

He put his hand under the counter. Maggie knew he kept a shotgun there. “Did I mention I’m Italian?”

She took the matchbook and left the coins. “I’ll wave the next time I drive by.”

He gave a formal nod of his head.

Maggie looked at the matchbook as she walked out the door. There were no indentations where someone had scribbled a phone number or written a name. She could ask Jimmy about the bar, but then he would want to know why she was asking. Going through formal channels to the phone company would alert Terry. She knew one person who worked for Southern Bell. Whether or not she could reach out to him was another matter.

Kate said, “I thought you told me everything was free.” She was still fidgeting with her belt as she trailed Maggie outside the building. It was a puzzle she had forgotten how to put back together.

“It can be. Up to you whether or not you take it.” Maggie spun her key ring around her middle finger, catching the keys and letting them go. She did this three more times before saying, “Your clips are upside down.”

Kate groaned as she switched them right side up. “Thank you.”

“When you go to the toilet, leave your Kel and your baton in the sink—never your gun. Lift the belt off the metal clips. Put the clips in
your pocket—same pocket every time. Pull your shoulder mic plug out of your transmitter jack. Hold the plug between your teeth so it doesn’t drop into the toilet. Undo your belt, then take it into the stall with you and hang it on the hook on the back of the door, or if there isn’t a hook, put it on the back of the toilet.”

All she asked was, “Kel?”

“Kel-Lite. Baton.” Maggie tapped her flashlight, then her nightstick. “Did you make sure your gun was secure before you took off your belt?”

“Secure?”

“Stop repeating everything I say.” Maggie pulled the revolver out of Kate’s holster. The hammer was flat against the firing pin. She showed it to the woman. “You know how this works, right?” She pulled back the hammer with her thumb. “You have to cock it if you want to fire a bullet.”

“Right.” Kate sounded like she’d heard this before, but it was just coming back to her. “During training—”

“You were told not to shoot the guys in the red tie.” The joke was older than Maggie. Chip and Duke used to make it. She guessed Bud Deacon had taken up the reins now that Duke was gone. “Just remember: PCP. Pull, cock, point.”

Kate got a funny grin on her face. Maggie had never caught the innuendo before.

“It’s not so funny when the other guy manages to shoot you first.” Maggie showed her how to do it, pulling the revolver, cocking the hammer, pointing the muzzle out in front of her. “It really should be SPCP, but nobody snaps their safety strap.”

“You do.”

“Because I don’t want my gun falling out if I have to chase somebody.” She indicated Kate’s holster. “Try it, but point toward the ground. And not at me.”

Kate’s lips moved as she checked off each step. The gestures were slow and jerky, more like the robot from
Lost in Space
.

Maggie tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. “Go home tonight. Take all the bullets out. You know how to do that, right?”

Kate nodded.

“Make sure the cylinder is empty, then practice pulling your gun. Cock the hammer with your thumb at the same time as you pull. That’s why the cylinder needs to be empty, in case the gun goes off. Bullets go through walls and floors. They go up into the air and they come straight back down. This is the most important part: Never rest your finger on the trigger. Rest it to the side. That’s called the trigger guard. Only touch the trigger when you’re going to shoot.”

“The instructor showed us that.”

“So, you’re ahead of the game.”

Kate laughed. The sound came deep from her belly. She started to reholster the weapon, then remembered to uncock the hammer. “Any more advice?”

Maggie had a lot of it, but she wasn’t sure she should waste her time on Kate Murphy. Wanda had called it this morning.

Irish Spring wasn’t going to last the week.

11

Fox sat at the bar with his Southern Comfort and a half-empty bowl of peanuts. He stared at the smoked mirror behind the bottles of liquor. Fox wasn’t a vain man. He was looking at the space behind him. The place was almost empty. It was a seedy bar like any seedy bar: dark interior, black vinyl on the booths, dark tiles on the floor, black walls that sucked in the faint glow of light from the neon liquor signs.

Not that the décor mattered. The patrons only came here for one thing.

A man in a business suit was sitting at a small table in the corner. He had the desolate look of a mid-level manager and an untouched shot of Jack in front of him. A homeless guy was a few tables over. He stared solemnly at the wall. In front of him was a bottle of rotgut and an oily-looking shotglass. His arm moved in two directions: up or down. Glass to mouth. Glass to table. Glass to mouth. Glass to table. The only variation came when the glass was empty, but he used his other hand to perform the task of refilling.

Just like Senior, only Senior would’ve had his hat on; his way of saying
he was only stopping in for a drink when everybody in the joint knew he’d been there for hours.

The door opened. Sunlight scythed through the crack. Fox narrowed his eyes, but didn’t look away.

Another guy in a suit. It was coming up on lunchtime. The place was going to fill up soon.

The new suit sat at the bar a few stools down from Fox. He lifted his chin in a nod.

Fox didn’t return the gesture.

Instead, Fox pushed his glass toward the bartender. The guy was good at his job. He’d already figured out Fox wasn’t a talker. The drink was poured, a new napkin was offered, and the bowl of peanuts was topped off without mention of the weather or sports or whatever bullshit small talk these guys excelled at.

Fox thought if he had to do a job like this, in a place like this, he might end up putting a bullet in his head.

There was a handgun under his jacket. Raven MP-25. Six-shooter, semiauto, pearl grip. A Saturday night special. He’d spent an hour this morning cleaning it, making sure it wouldn’t jam again. He probably should’ve tossed the gun, but he’d always been sentimental. Even during the war, he had his talismans. Lucky socks. Lucky undershirt. Lucky gun.

That’s where he’d gotten his nickname, during the war. Fox, as in “crazy like a—” not Fox as in Foxy, which another grunt had been called. The women swooned over him until his face got burned off, and then they swooned for a completely different reason.

The door opened again. Fox blinked away the sunlight. Another guy in a suit. He joined the original suit at the bar, giving Fox the same nod.

Fox shook a cigarette out of his pack. He checked his pockets for his lighter.

The bartender placed a book of matches by Fox’s glass as he talked to Suit the Second. “What’s up with this weather?”

Suit Two responded, but Fox gave not one shit about the weather.

He gripped the matchbook in his hand. Just looking at the Suits,
their long sideburns and flared pants and slouched shoulders made his blood simmer. Fox had spent a lifetime distinguishing himself from his father, but he had to think that Senior would’ve shared his hatred of these new age pussies who made their money with their mouths instead of with their hands.

Not too long ago, this city had been filled with men who built things from the ground up. Factories churned day and night. Trains rushed up and down the tracks. Eighteen-wheelers roared toward all points on the compass. Now, every bit of cash that flowed through Atlanta came in on a wire. Foreigners clogged the sidewalks outside shiny new office buildings. Tiny cheap cars flooded the roads. Fox would sometimes look up at the skyscrapers, the new hotels, and wonder what the fuck was going on inside. How did these guys in two-hundred-dollar suits make so much money sitting behind a desk all day?

And why was it that men like Fox were expected to answer to them?

The world had turned upside down again. Nobody knew their place anymore.

Fox knew his place. He had a mission, which was all that mattered. It was his job to put the world back where it belonged. If he didn’t, there would be collateral damage. The last time Fox had slacked off, he’d found himself standing by his mother’s grave watching her cheap pine coffin being lowered into the ground.

Never again.

Job number one: Kill Jimmy Lawson.

Two to the head, just like the other one. Then Fox could move on to the next target.

But which target?

Fox looked down at the matchbook. The curly logo reminded him of the curve of Kate’s neck when she bent over to look at her notebook.

Fox couldn’t think about Kate now.

But then he was.

Kate sitting in the squad car. Kate taking notes. Kate calling in a job on the radio.

Kate in his bed
.

There it was, like a picture. Kate laid out on his white satin sheets. Her hair crazy wild. Her arms and legs splayed. Fox wouldn’t know where her creamy white skin stopped and the sheet started. He wondered what she would smell like. Taste like. Feel like.

Because who would know? She was going to die anyway. What was the harm in getting a little pleasure out of her before she was gone? Fox knew Kate would be wanting it. An oversexed girl like that was probably used to all kinds of nasty things in bed. Fox would probably have to take her somewhere quiet so nobody would hear the filthy words that came out of her mouth.

Good thing Fox had already soundproofed a room in his basement.

Another sign of the plan taking shape. Last weekend, Fox had no idea why he was soundproofing the room, but he trusted that thing that sat at the back of his brain and figured out options. Even as Fox laid the rows of batting and insulation, he could feel the plan working through the strands of his mind. Sure, part of him knew he was still going to kill Kate Murphy, but somewhere else, Fox was thinking there was no reason he couldn’t have a little fun first.

It was true that he had never killed a woman before. Maybe there was a different way to do it. Maybe there was an option that got them both what they deserved. Sort of like bribing the executioner so he made a clean cut with his ax.

Lesson five: A man prepares for all contingencies.

Sunlight cracked through the open door. Two more suits entered the bar. They took the two stools between Fox and the other suits. They mentioned the weather again. It was agreed for the second time in as many minutes that it was getting colder every day. Talk turned to the game this weekend against Alabama.

Fox tuned it out, though he was interested in the game. One thing being a grunt taught you was to always keep your focus.

He wanted to look through his clipboard, to relive the last month of reconnaissance. But you couldn’t take a thing like that into a bar. People would stare. Even in this kind of place. Fox didn’t need it anyway. Today’s details were fresh in his memory.

Capitol Homes. Techwood Homes. Bankhead Homes. Carver Street. Piedmont Avenue. Jimmy had taken Kate to almost every shithole in Atlanta.

But this bar was one shithole Kate could never see. Fox was inside Jimmy’s head now. He knew how a man like that would behave. Jimmy had gotten rid of Kate almost an hour ago. He had done this for a reason. He wanted to lick his wounds. Or to have somebody else lick them for him.