Copp On Ice, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) (5 page)

      
"What's this all about?" Murray asked worriedly.

      
"I made a jerk out of myself this afternoon," Turner told him in a voice trembling with suppressed rage. "Manning and Peterson set me up to help them discourage a certain private detective from nosing around the problems in Brighton. A few hours later I'm called in with the rest of the department to meet our new chief, and it's the same certain private detective we rousted. I tried to explain it but apparently he is a very unforgiving man and now he's trying to roust me back."

I said, "That's bullshit and you know it's bullshit. I'm not here to play games or footsies with you or anyone, and I didn't tail you tonight to embarrass or harass you. Has it occurred to you. Detective Turner, that the same shooter who found Manning and Peterson could be laying his sights on you too?"

She responded to that only with the eyes, and they seemed a bit squelched—maybe by fear or anxiety, maybe by something else.

Murray cried, "What are you saying? Manning and Peterson have been .. . ?"

"Yeah," I said soberly, "yeah, they have been. Who's next on the list? What the hell is going down here, Chief?"

It was like he hadn't heard me. "Oh my God," he groaned.

I asked, "Were the four of you involved in something?"

He responded to that one, raised his hand slightly above the head and made a sign in the air. A big, mean-looking Mexican was at my side instantly. Murray instructed him, "Show the gentleman where the door is, Billy."

I pushed Billy away and allowed him to see the immediate future in my eyes. "I know where it's at," I told him.

"Show the gentleman," from Murray.

Turner stirred and came to my defense. "I'll show him,"

she said quickly. She had to brush past me to get out of the booth.

      
Murray growled, "It's okay, Lila. Sit down." She said, "No, I'll..."

      
We walked out arm in arm, and she whispered to me as we cleared the door, "Well, now that was really dumb!" Maybe so, but it was only the beginning of dumb.

CHAPTER SIX

Right up to the last moment
, there, I'd been developing a good feeling about Tim Murray. Now I wasn't so sure, and I wanted to talk to Detective Turner about that but she was not overly receptive to my conversation or to my presence in her off-duty life. "Let's find some quiet place to talk," I suggested as we walked through the parking lot outside The Dee-light Zone.

      
"I've got day shift tomorrow," she said pointedly. "Maybe you can function without sleep but everyone else can't."

      
"You've been doing okay so far," I reminded her, glancing at my watch. "Night's shot already anyway. Why did Murray throw me out?"

      
"Same reason as me, probably," she replied with a tired grimace. "I'm throwing you out too. It's a rule I have. Chief. I don't fraternize with the brass off-duty."

      
"You were fraternizing with Murray."

      
"Not exactly. The rule doesn't apply to him now anyway."

      
"What exactly, then?"

      
"What do you mean?"

      
"What was the nature of your business in there tonight?"

      
"I don't have to answer that. I'm not going to answer it. Goodnight, now. I'm going home."

      
I leaned into the car door to prevent her from opening it, said, "Murray seemed to take it hard, the news about Manning and Peterson."

      
"Why shouldn't he? They were his officers for quite a few years. What'd you expect, just laying it on him that way? I was about to tell him with some sensitivity when you came in and pre-empted me."

      
"I thought he overreacted."

      
"That's not how I saw it," she said. "Can I go home now?"

      
"You didn't come here just to tell him that," I decided. "You came for information before you laid it on him. Are you working homicide now, Detective?"

      
She just glared at me, said nothing.

      
"Is that also why you went to Schwartzman's home? What was his connection with the dead officers?"

      
She sighed heavily, showed me a defeated smile, replied, "Look, some strange things have been happening lately. I've been very confused about some of it. I'm just trying to sort it out, that's all. I'm still numb from. .. well, I knew those guys pretty well too. Chief Murray did not overreact to the news. They were good cops, maybe a bit flashy at times, but good cops and good friends."

      
"That's why you were so anxious to snitch on them."

      
It was like I'd slapped her. "That is a hell of a way to put it! What's to snitch? You knew who we were and you knew what we'd done. I was just trying to give you some perspective."

"Thanks for the thought," I said drily. "I already had the perspective. Someone didn't want me coming to Brighton. Who? Why? That's what I need to know. Why should I be that much a threat to anyone? Can you give me that perspective, Turner?"

She was still hot under the collar but didn't seem to know exactly how to vent it. "Why the hell don't you just call me Lila, like everyone else?"

"Doesn't change the questions, kid," I replied.

"Doesn't change the answers either," she said. "Take your hand off the door, please. I really must go now. I log in at eight o'clock. Catch me then if you wish to continue this examination."

"What examination?" I growled, but I opened the car door and closed it behind her after she slid inside.

She lowered her window and said tightly, "Don't follow me, please."

"Lila Boobs," I said.

"What?"

"That's what I've been calling you to myself all night. So maybe it fits better than anything else, at least until you've leveled with me. We started off bad, kid. So let's forget the chiefs and Indians stuff, it never wore with me anyway, and I don't want it getting in the way of direct communications. Whatever game this is, it's being played for keeps. You go home and mourn your dead partners if you want to, but save a little grief for yourself too because you're in this thing as deep as they were and I don't think you're heavy enough to handle it alone. When that sinks in on you, give me a call."

"Where would I reach you?" she inquired soberly.

      
"I'll be camping in my office until they throw me out."

      
She smiled suddenly, a genuine smile, said, "Lila Boobs, huh?" and drove away.

      
I realized that it was the first real smile I'd seen on that pretty face. And I decided that maybe I'd gotten my message through to her.

      
I just hoped it wasn't too late.

      
It was, it seemed, a tad too late for me. Billy Boy and two of his pals emerged from the shadows of the building and leaned against my car, daring me to pass. I asked them, "You boys sure you want to play?"

      
Billy spoke for them. "Mr. Murray wants to make sure you get safely off the property. We just came out to make

sure.”

      
Sure they did.

      
I said, "Move away from the car."

      
"This your car?"

      
"Belongs to the City of Brighton. I'd hate to see it get dented by someone's head. So move away."

      
"City of Brighton's back there," Billy said, jerking his thumb in the wrong direction. "Sure you're not lost? We could help you find it."

      
"You'd better find yourself first, pal."

      
"I think you got a flat tire."

      
The guy was a prophet. I did not have a flat tire, until he said it. Then one of his pals produced a switchblade and very deliberately inserted it into the sidewall of a rear tire, all the while smiling at me with a self-satisfied leer.

      
I said, "Gee, I wish you hadn't done that," and then I kicked his balls into orbit while he was still bent over the wheel of the car. The leer turned abruptly into a very sick grimace and the guy fell over onto his side, moaning.

      
Life can be that way, you know. Go looking for trouble, you usually find it. I don't carry my black belt around with

me, and I don't usually go around looking for someone to practice on... but it's okay, someone always comes looking for a go sooner or later, you just have to be patient.

Billy's other pal scooped up the switchblade and danced toward me in an improvised and badly executed Kung Fu shuffle, waving the knife in front of him like a Benihana chef as Billy himself warily circled the other way. I hit the chef with another kick at mid-shuffle. It caught him just the way I'd hoped it would, off balance and struggling with the choreography, sent him flying headlong against the building hard enough to rattle it.

Billy stopped circling, held both hands out at shoulder level and said, "Hey, wait, there's been a misunderstanding."

"I think so," I agreed.

"You have a spare?"

I threw him the keys. "Look and see."

The guy at the wall was lying in an unconscious heap. The other had begun to lose his stomach. Billy opened the trunk and looked inside, announced, "Oh yeah, right, we're in luck. I'll change it for you."

I said, "That's damn nice of you, Billy."

He huffed and puffed with the jack, changed the tire in what I would regard as record time, neatly stowed the flat and gently closed the trunk, laid the keys on it as he gave me a smile and said, "Good as new."

"Not quite," I corrected him. "Your pal owes the City of Brighton fifty bucks for a new tire. Can't patch a side- wall."

"That's right," Billy said agreeably, "you can't." He leaned over the groaning man and wrestled his wallet free, counted out forty dollars in fives and tens, added a ten from his own wallet and placed the wad under the keys.
"There you go."

      
"Move the trash out of my way," I requested.

      
He said, "Oh, sure," and dragged the groaning man clear.

      
I claimed my keys and the fifty bucks, got in the car and got out of there.

      
Tim Murray was standing just outside the door to the club as I swung past. I waved at him. He waved back, but a bit uncertainly.

      
Why the hell, I wondered, had he put those guys on me? Not out of grief for Manning and Peterson, for sure.

      
So why?

      
The Copp in charge would need to find out why... and damned quick.

      
So I went straight back to 726 Craggy Lane.