Freaky Deaky (9 page)

ROBIN: Mark? . . . You want to hear a better one than that?

There was a silence. Skip, running his hand over his chin, smoothing his beard now, looked at Robin.

ROBIN: What would you say if you didn’t have to wait? If Woody were to suddenly disappear?

Skip said, “Shit,” grinning.

MARK: How?

ROBIN: In a cloud of smoke.

Skip was still grinning, shaking his head.

MARK: Is this like a magic trick?

“Jesus Christ,” Skip said.

ROBIN: Something like it, only better.

MARK: Yeah? Why?

ROBIN: Because once he disappears he never comes back. What would you say to that?

MARK: I think I’d say . . . yeah, I’d say how much is a trick like that worth?

ROBIN: You mean what does a trick like that cost, don’t you? What it’s worth to you is everything. Sixty million. Right?

MARK: It might not be that much.

ROBIN: Mark, if you’re not interested . . .

MARK: I didn’t say that.

ROBIN: Then don’t fuck with me. Either you want Woody gone or you don’t.

Skip made a face, pretending to be surprised.

MARK: I’m not sure I know what that means.

ROBIN: Yes, you do. Gone means gone.

MARK: Well, let’s say like if I
were
to go along with it . . .

ROBIN: Cut the shit, Mark. You’re a big boy. You say yes or no. If you say yes, your troubles are over. If you say no, you’re on your own.

MARK: I don’t know what you’re gonna do.

ROBIN: Of course not. You don’t want to know.

MARK: All right. How much?

ROBIN: You want it done?

Silence. Skip didn’t move.

MARK: Yes.

ROBIN: Two million.

“Jesus Christ,” Skip said.

ROBIN: We’ll work out the payment, make it look like an investment.

Silence.

MARK: All right.

Skip raised his eyebrows at Robin, who stared back at him, holding up her hand.

ROBIN: There’s one thing you have to do.

MARK: What?

ROBIN: Get me a key to Woody’s limo.

MARK: How would I do that?

ROBIN: Mark . . . if that’s all you have to do, don’t you think you’ll find a way?

MARK: I guess so.

ROBIN: Will you do it?

Silence.

MARK: Okay.

Robin pushed the
OFF
button. Skip sat at the kitchen counter nodding, thinking about it. He looked up at Robin. “What do you need the car key for?”

“So you can get in. I’m sure they keep it locked.”

“Shit, that’s no problem. I’d rather do it myself than wait for little Markie.”

“I want him involved,” Robin said.

“He’s involved. He said yeah, he’s gonna pay to see his brother disappear. What else you want?”

“How about a way to do it?”

Skip said, “How ’bout when Woody comes out to the car and the Black-ass Panther opens the door for him?”

“I like it,” Robin said.

“Same as the one I did in L.A. many years ago. Put the charge in the trunk of the car. Dynamite, about five sticks is all, ammonium nitrate and a plastic bottle of fuel oil. Insert blasting cap in a stick and run two wires from it—one to the battery, the other to a clothespin that’s got copper around each end where it snaps together—and run a third wire back to the battery. You got it?”

“You wedge the clothespin open,” Robin said.

“You got it. Use a little hunk of wood and run a line from it through the trunk and around the side of the back seat and hook it to the door with a safety pin. The door opens, it pulls the wedge out of
the clothespin, your circuit is closed, and the car goes up in a great big ball of fire.”

Robin said, “How do you know which door he’ll open?”

“If I have any doubts I’ll wire ’em both.”

“You’re my hero,” Robin said.

“What do I get for being it?”

“You get to trip,” Robin said. “I brought you a present.”

Chris was going to visit Greta
on Wednesday, but before he was out of 1300, Wednesday had become one of the worst days of his life and he never made it to the hospital. He did call, late, and a nurse told him Greta was diagnosed as having a mild concussion and would probably be released in the morning, after the doctor looked at her. When he walked into Detroit General Thursday about 10
A.M.
Greta had on her sweater and skirt, anxious to leave. She said, “This’s the scariest hospital I’ve ever been in.” Chris told her it was old. “I don’t mean how it looks,” Greta said. “There people in here handcuffed to their beds. I think half the patients have gunshot wounds.” Chris said, Well, some of them. Outside in the sunlight he asked if he could drive her home or anywhere. Greta said she had a car.

After that, walking along St. Antoine toward the parking structure, she was quiet. He asked her if she felt okay. She said, Fine. Then she said, “How
come this morning, Maureen stops by to talk? She tells me I have to come up to sign the complaint and all, acting like it’s her case now. I asked where you were, she said you were busy.”

“I was taken off,” Chris said.

“Why?”

“It has to do with the way cases are assigned, according to the workload.” He glanced at Greta and saw her eyes narrowed at him.

She said, “I can tell if you’re lying.”

“It’s true.”

“Yeah, but something happened you’re not telling me about.”

“Maureen’s a pro,” Chris said. “You have nothing to worry about.”

He didn’t have to dodge or add to that. They were in the parking structure now, Greta looking around. She said, “I left it right in this aisle, I
know
I did. It’s a light-blue Ford Escort.” After a while she said, “Shit. Somebody stole my car. Is that possible, a block from the police station?”

“They get stolen closer to it than that,” Chris said.

They walked back to 1300, into the Clinton Street entrance and the dismal lobby that belonged to the First Precinct. At the counter Greta told the sergeant wearing a white uniform shirt her car had been stolen just two blocks from here, an ’84 Ford Escort, light blue, license number 709-G
something, like GTN. Or, wait, maybe it was 907. The sergeant asked to see her registration. Greta told him it was in the car, in the glove compartment. The sergeant said he would have to have proof of ownership before he could make out a report. Greta said, “You saw me here the other day, didn’t you? You know who I am. You think I’m lying? It’s got brand-new snow tires on it I bought at Sears instead of leaving this dumb town like I should’ve.”

Chris, standing on one foot and then the other, said, “Sergeant, why don’t you quit acting like a hard-on and just write the report. So we can get out of here.”

The sergeant, in his starched white bodyshirt, looked at Chris and said, “From what I understand you’re already out of here. I don’t need any grief from you. I’ll write the report when I know to my satisfaction a vehicle owned and operated by this lady’s been stolen. I’d be a lieutenant right now if I hadn’t filled out a PCR one time containing false information that could’ve been verified.”

Chris said, “I’m surprised you’re not a commander by now.”

The desk sergeant said, “You ought to know better than that.”

Chris said, “What I mean is, you’re hard-assed enough to be one.”

* * *

He drove Greta home in his dad’s ’87 Cadillac Seville, maroon with gold pinstriping. Greta didn’t comment on the car or appear to wonder how he could afford to own it. On the way across West Fort Street, past warehouses and railroad freight yards, the Ambassador Bridge arching across to Canada in the car’s windshield, she pinned him down.

“Are you gonna tell me what happened?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Before, you said you’d been taken off the case. And then that cop said something about your being out. Out of
here
. What’d he mean by that?”

“I’ve been suspended,” Chris said.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m no longer a police officer. Until, if and when I’m reinstated.”

“They kicked you out? Why?”

“You want the official reason or the real one?”

“Both.”

“The real reason is because I put Woody in jail. His lawyer called the mayor’s office and they dropped it on the department. Get the assault charge against Woody withdrawn on the grounds
he
was the one assaulted, not you, that he was defending himself and I overreacted and used force without due cause.”

Greta said, “Wait a minute, he
raped
me.”

“I’m not talking about the sexual assault, you can still press that one. I mean the one that put you
in the hospital. The lawyer threatened to sue the police department and the city, this is on the grounds that Woody was falsely arrested, unless the charge against him is withdrawn and I’m suspended from the force subject to dismissal.”

Greta said, “A rapist can do that?”

“I guess if you’re from one of the right families or your lawyer is.”

“Why take it out on you?”

“They got mad. You go after who you can get.”

“That’s the real reason. What’s the official one?”

“They gave it to my commander, find some excuse to dump me, and he did. I’ve been suspended indefinitely and told to keep my mouth shut, pending a board hearing.”

“For what?”

“Having a residence outside the city limits.”

“You’re kidding. You have to live in Detroit?”

“It’s one of the rules.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“I did till last Saturday. It’s a long story.” There was a silence. Chris said, “It’s not that long a story, but if I told you about it you’d give me one of your funny looks. And I want you to have confidence in me. You’ll have Maureen, but I’ll be around too, in case you need me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to help you.”

“Yeah, but why, if it’s not your job?” She put her
hand on his arm and said, “
I
got you fired. My God, I just realized that.”

“No, you didn’t, Woody did. Don’t feel bad or give it another thought, okay? It’s my problem and I’ll handle it one way or another, depending on how chickenshit the department wants to be. But what it shows us, more than anything, is how much clout Woody’s got. What’ll happen, you’ll probably hear from Woody’s lawyer, thinking you’ve already signed the complaint, and he’ll ask you to come in. You say no thanks. So then he’ll give you a bunch of shit on the phone how it saddens him a nice girl like you is gonna get dragged through a lot of unnecessary mud. He’ll probably tell you he has witnesses who’ll swear you made the moves on Woody, took him to bed.”

“Then I wouldn’t have a chance, huh?”

“If you go to trial they’ll do everything they can to make you look bad. You have to consider that. The lawyer could even give Woody a Bible to read in court, I’ve seen it. But he’s gonna have months to work on you, the lawyer, before you ever go to trial, if you do, and I’m sure he’ll try to scare the hell out of you.”

Greta said, “I won’t answer the phone if it rings.”

She was afraid already. Chris could hear it in her voice.

“Maureen’ll get the names of everybody who
was at that swimming party, see what they have to say. One or two might have it in for Woody, for some reason love the idea of putting it to him. I told Maureen I might talk with Mark Ricks after she got through with him. Maureen said okay, just don’t tell me about it.”

Greta said, “How can you, if you’re suspended?”

“I’d talk to him man to man,” Chris said. “Ask him what the deal is, if he pimps for his brother.”

“He’d never admit it.”

“He might, it’s how you ask. He might even think being a pimp is cool. I remember Mark Ricks from way back, but I don’t remember Woody, so I didn’t associate the name right away.”

“You
know
Mark?”

“I’d see him at school, when I was at U of M. You couldn’t miss him, he loved to make speeches. Maureen’ll talk to him first. Also find out who his friend is, Robin, if we need her. . . . You don’t know anything about her, if she’s an actress, maybe was in one of his plays?”

“That could be,” Greta said. “She was kind of a showy type. Way older than the other girls, but had a nice figure.”

“How old?”

“I’ll bet close to forty.”

“You said Mark picked her up at Brownie’s. . . . How did Robin get to Woody’s? She ride in the limo?”

“She had her own car there.”

“What kind?”

“A VW. I remember, ’cause I was so surprised when Mark went with her. He drove.”

“And you rode in the limo.”

“Four of us, with Woody and his fur coat.”

“He say anything to you on the way?”

“Not a word. The girls did all the talking. Woody drank and ate peanuts.”

Chris could almost smell them as she said it. They turned off Fort Street to cross railroad tracks and a freeway.

“I might as well tell you right now, I don’t see it coming to trial. I mean even if there was evidence, the guy’s too well connected.”

“So if you’re rich enough,” Greta said, “you can do whatever you want.”

Familiar words. “You can even double-park in front of the Detroit Club,” Chris said, “and not get a ticket.”

They were driving north on Junction now, Chris’s old neighborhood that was turning from Polish to Hispanic, the bell tower of Holy Redeemer in the near distance, Greta’s gaze moving along the block of old-fashioned two-story frame houses with steps leading up to porches.

“There it is, the one with the real estate sign:
Sold
.” She said, “How about a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee? If I have any bread.”

What she didn’t have, Chris noticed, was furniture. She brought him into an empty living room saying everything had gone to Arkansas—well, except her bedroom set upstairs, the kitchen table and chairs, a TV and that telephone message recorder on the floor. A tiny red light on it was flashing. Greta said, “My mom’s the only one ever calls me,” went down to her knees and turned on the machine.

A male voice said, “Greta? You like Greta or you like Ginger? I like Ginger, myself. Anyway, about this situation happened between you and Mr. Woody Ricks? There appears to be some misunderstanding. All you have to do is call 876-5161. I believe we can settle this matter and everybody will be happy. Especially you, Ginger. Please call that number soon as you can.”

Greta punched the OFF button and looked over her shoulder at Chris, frowning. “That was his
lawyer?
”

“It was his chauffeur,” Chris said, “trying to sound like a lawyer. That was Donnell.”