Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 21 - Infernal Angels (13 page)

I swirled my arm free of the jacket, threw myself back at the helm, banging an ankle on the shifting cane, and hit the accelerator, spinning the wheel away from the curb. My rear tires spun, snatched hold of the asphalt, and catapulted the car forward, drawing an answering shriek of rubber from an SUV that had been coming up in that lane. By the time the driver thought to stand on his horn I’d cleared twenty yards.

When Luis spun right on his heel into a side street, I was ready for him, bumping over the curb and fishtailing for traction with all the street signs facing the wrong direction. I lost the rest of my luck when a police cruiser came into view crossing at the end of the short one-way block. It hesitated, then threw on its lights and siren and turned my way.

I was driving a vehicle that wasn’t registered in my name. Sorting it out would take most of the day and void whatever free hand I had. Whoever had pinned a tag on me, Thaler or Hornet, would be back on my rear bumper with an open tail I couldn’t shake with a shovel. I threw the Buick into reverse before the wheels stopped rolling, forcing a gasp and an ominous shudder from the transmission. The car wasn’t built that would put up with much of that. I roared backward around the corner, one arm on the back of the seat and watching through the rear window, dead into the path of the same SUV I’d made acquaintance with previously. The driver was still shaken from the earlier incident, picking his way forward nervously, and had time to swing out of the way into the opposite lane. No other cars were coming in either direction, but it was a costly day for Goodyear. I banged into first and set fire to some more.

Motor City cops are almost impossible to lose; they share the same DNA with their units. I never put more than a block between us, and they would be on the air for help from up ahead. I had stop sticks in my future and a bad time with the license review board in Lansing.

I was going in the direction of home. The plan was to make it far enough around some handy corner to ditch the car and take off on foot. They’d trace it to OK Towing & Repair, but Ernst had more pull with the police department than I had. He’d once told me he’d agreed to replace the windshield on an official car and lose the record; something about a precinct commander accidentally blowing a hole through it when he was taking his sidearm off cock. With brass in the picture they might predate an auto theft report. They might even forget to process fingerprints.

As a plan it was worse than Ruby Ridge, but it was all I had, and I wouldn’t have time to mop up before bailing out.

Lucky breaks are rare, and cost you all the ones you have coming when things turn bad. The old woman in the market and the Sikh in the convenience store had broken the budget. I made the turn I needed to set up the plan and slammed into the trunk of a neutral-colored, anonymous-looking sedan that was moving slowly, looking for the private detective who’d given it the slip that morning.

I wasn’t belted. The steering column hit my chest with the force of a three-pounder. My lungs didn’t have the chance to reinflate before the police cruiser screamed around the corner and struck the Buick from behind.

The bad dreams would stop now for sure. But what good are they if they don’t protect you from what’s going to happen anyway?

FIFTEEN

They were waiting for me when I came back from X-ray.

Not the officers who’d rear-ended me; I’d been told they were still being treated for cuts and abrasions and under observation for possible concussion.

Not the two men I’d rear-ended, either; one was a candidate for whiplash, the other had a broken nose caused by overeager deployment of an air bag. Hospital staffs are hell for gossip.

No, these were two different officers with the Detroit Police Department, uniforms from Traffic Safety armed with notebooks to pump me for details about the accident. They were polite and businesslike. They always are at that stage of an investigation. Cops only yell and throw chairs at persons of interest on TV, where the forty-minute guarantee of a conviction never fails. I told them everything I could—about the accident. No murders came up during the conversation.

I had a sore chest and a stiff neck, and someone was studying a set of eight-by-ten glossies for evidence of broken ribs and a cracked sternum. Sometimes the risk is equal even when the basic safety equipment isn’t in place.

They thanked me and left, but lying on my gurney in a toy paper gown I was aware of a lingering presence outside the door of the room. They were waiting on orders whether to charge me with fleeing and eluding, reckless driving, reckless endangerment, and driving the wrong way on a one-way street. Nothing would be overlooked when personnel were involved.

I should have been concerned, and I was, but only on a remote level. I was shot full of painkillers, and for the first time in what seemed months the ghost of the slug that had torn through my leg was in hibernation. I could use a smoke. One of Luis Quincy Adams’ Indian-reservation cigarettes would do.

Lieutenant Hornet came in looking like a fat kid with an ice cream cone. He had on a sport coat and slacks that matched in everything but color, texture, and style. His shirt puckered where the seams were fused rather than stitched and his necktie had run out of steam just above the fourth button after the lap around his neck. “You look like—”

“I was shit by a pigeon,” I said.

“Hey, that’s not bad.”

“I got it from one of yours. The one who put me in this mess.”

“Well, we all got to take responsibility for our own messes. You got a jim-dandy. We can bung you up for ninety days rock-bottom, then kick it over to the state police. Hope you like security work.”

“A private license isn’t as brittle as you think.”

“It breaks pretty easy with two law enforcement agencies tugging on both ends.”

“We’d be holding this conversation somewhere else if you and Thaler had given me the two days you promised.”

“You’ll have to take that up with her. That car you creamed is registered to Washington.”

“I figured that. They’re easier to ditch than Detroit cops.”

“As who knows better than you. Why try ditching ’em at all? You turned a misdemeanor traffic citation into a string of felonies when you stomped on the gas.”

“I was overdue for a haircut. The barbershop closed at five.”

“I think it had to do with that heap you were driving. We traced it to a garage operating outside the law.”

“Talk to anyone there?”

“Question part’s mine.”

“What’s it say on the books about borrowing a car from a friend?”

“You got no friends. If you had one when you borrowed it, you sure don’t now. That Buick looks like a beer can that went through the crusher. You know, the law in Michigan says when your car rear-ends another, you’re at fault for not maintaining control of your vehicle. It can be sitting in the middle of the lane just over a hill and you’re still on the hook for it. It don’t make no sense, but it’s the law.”

“Did you ticket the cops who rear-ended me?”

“Not my department. That beat-up Olds of yours turned up at the same garage. You want to enlighten me on that?”

“A man leaves his car at a repair place and drives off in another. Why don’t we find a detective and ask him what he makes of it?”

But he was in too good a mood to needle. “That’s some service for a chop shop. The owner apparently delivered the loaner to your door, or close to it—the Buick wasn’t seen—and picked up your car and drove it to the garage. He was followed there under the impression it was you driving.”

“Show me one conviction for receiving and selling stolen vehicles or parts at OK Towing that makes it a chop shop. Show me one arrest.”

“Not the point. You and this Dierdorf character are both guilty of interfering with federal officers in the performance of their duties.”

“In that case I ought to be having this conversation with the feds. Next time you wander this far outside your jurisdiction, leave bread crumbs. Otherwise you’ll never find your way back.”

“Yeah, well, who knows where one leaves off and the other starts up anymore? We’re still wrassling over why you spooked when that cruiser turned on its lights. Your hair don’t look so shaggy to me.”

“It’s practically tickling my insteps.”

“What were you doing in that part of town that was so important you couldn’t wait for a street that was going your way?”

“I hear you can get good goat cheese there.”

His face darkened. I’d found his range finally: Tell the truth, spark a vascular incident. I didn’t get the chance to build on it, though. Mary Ann Thaler came in carrying a woven-leather bag over the shoulder of a brown suit.

“What possessed you to flee an officer of the law?” she said.

“I’m doing as well as can be expected. Thanks for coming to visit.”

Hornet said, “I asked already. I’m handing it off to you.”

“What were you doing in that neighborhood?”

“Why don’t you and the lieutenant step outside? You can divvy up the script while I finish counting ceiling tiles. Who needs sleep? I’ve got morphine.”

She glanced back at the closed door, then unshipped her bag and hung it on a visitor’s chair. “What’ve you got?”

“Possible fractures. A sore neck for sure. I’ll be making all right turns for a while.”

“That will be a nice change from the usual zigzag. You know what I meant.”

“I just got through telling Hornet I had another day and a half coming before you got to ask that question.”

“Things have changed. It isn’t the investigation it was when we struck that bargain.”

“Things change fast. The ink isn’t dry on our handshake.”

“If I don’t report back to the MacNamara Building with some answers, it won’t be my case anymore. The next person who asks might not be so polite.”

“He can’t be worse than Hornet.”

“Yeah, and you’re Emily Post,” he said.

I let him have that one. I was curious, and cautious. The opium made me more vulnerable than usual. If the change Thaler was talking about meant she knew there was a second murder, a slip on my part would put me on a shelf for a while as a suspect.

“We need to know what you turned up during that interesting excursion into the inner city,” she said. “
I
need to know. I’m fighting for my little scrap of earth.”

“Ladies first.”

She said, “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Okay, Hornet first. Or does he know what’s changed?”

“He does. This is a joint operation. Trying to split us up won’t work.”

I yawned. I didn’t have to dig for it. “It’ll have to wait. I’m getting pretty mellow.”

“Buddy, there ain’t enough dope.”

She told him to shut up, without much conviction. She was concentrating on me. “You’ve got a buttload of charges outstanding, Amos. We can pick them when they’re ripe or let them die on the vine. It’s a brave new world, stuffed with options. Your choice.”

“So it’s Amos. That makes you the one who offers to fluff my pillow.”

Hornet said, “Don’t be so generous with them
we
s—Marshal. All you got’s a personal injury case on behalf of your two people in the car. I got two cops in the hospital and ammo enough to put Walker on a bicycle from here to Easter.”

“Deputy marshal.” She spoke without inflection.

I closed my eyes. I was playing possum. I didn’t figure I could be any less convincing than the one-thousand-and-first revival of a road show I hadn’t liked when it played Broadway.

The joke was on me, but then it usually is. The padding under my back was a magic carpet. I went away from there. They were waiting when I woke up.

*   *   *

“He’s back,” said Thaler.

Hornet was standing at the window looking out. He wasn’t so wide I couldn’t see it was getting dark out. That reminded me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and I never eat breakfast. I wondered when feeding time was. Thaler was sitting in the visitor’s chair with her legs crossed and a bulky plastic bag on her lap. When the lieutenant came over I had the wild thought they were going to throw it over my head and smuggle me out through the laundry room.

She got up and transferred the bag to my lap. “Get dressed. The walls have ears, and the staff needs the gurney.”

I untwisted the top and peered inside. It was a hell of a way to treat what was left of a good suit. My .38 wasn’t in it, but then it wouldn’t be. It would take paperwork to get it back from downtown.

“You keep telling me to put my clothes on, but I always sleep through the R-rated part. How’d my pictures turn out?”

“Better than you deserve,” Hornet said. “One of my officers is still seeing double.”

Thaler said, “No breaks or fractures. Are you Catholic?”

“Episcopalian. If you’re planning my send-off.”

“Episcopalians light candles, too. You should. How a man manages to total three cars and walk away, without a seat belt or an air bag to his name, would convert anyone.”

“Where are we going?”