Voices of the Dead (29 page)

Hess, smiling, said, “Don’t worry. He will walk through the door any minute. Have another cocktail.”

“One more,” she said. “But you must join me.”

Hess took her glass and filled it with ice, poured vodka almost to the top and handed it to her. He refilled his glass with Canadian Club whisky.

She frowned staring at the drink.

“Ray, you trying to get me drunk?”

“I am enjoying your company. Promise me you will not leave until Harry arrives.” He couldn’t let her leave, and hoped the alcohol would relax her.

“Did Harry tell you about me?’

“He spoke of you in the most complimentary way.”

Her face lit up. “What did he say?”

“You are a remarkable woman,” Hess said. “I can see that myself.”

Now she was smiling. “Harry say that, really?” She sipped her drink, and glanced at the clock on the oven. The time was 8:45. “I don’t want to, but if he is not coming here in fifteen minutes I have to go.”

“Do you have children?” Hess said, trying to change the subject.

“Two girls‚ teenagers. Visiting their father in London.” She paused to drink her vodka and said, “You are married?”

“Twenty-two years.” An eternity, Hess was thinking. Married in name only. They slept in separate bedrooms, rarely socialized together. What had he seen in Elfriede, a big unpolished, unsophisticated farm girl? He had married her because the sex was good and, at the time, he didn’t know any better.

She finished the vodka and glanced at the clock again, slid off her chair, and stood leaning against the counter. She seemed intoxicated, unsteady.

“Tell Harry I was here. Brisket is in the oven. Nice to meet you.”

“No one is expecting you. Why do you have to leave?”

At 1:22 a.m., Hess was in his car creeping along West Jarvis Avenue, a quiet tree-lined street in Hazel Park, a middle-class community with small cookie-cutter houses built in even rows. He found the address he was looking for, parked on the street and walked to the rear entrance of the house. The sliding glass door was unlocked. He entered a small room with mismatched furniture, empty pizza cartons and beer cans on a coffee table, an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. He walked through the house checking the rooms. Buddy was asleep on a mattress on the floor of a small cluttered bedroom that smelled of cigarettes and stale beer. The money he had given him was on top of the dresser still in the envelope. He picked it up and counted the bills. One was missing. He folded the money and slipped it in his shirt pocket. There was a beer can on the dresser next to car keys, billfold and cigarettes. He shook the can and heard beer slosh inside.

Buddy was on his back, snoring. Hess stood over him, pouring beer on his face. Buddy thrashed and flipped over, and sat up rubbing his eyes.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Surprised, angry until he saw Hess standing over him. “Mr. Klaus, that you? Jesus H Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Were you successful?”

“Was I successful?” He smiled. “Let me put it this way—there’s one less coon you got to worry about.” He yawned, rubbed his jaw. “What’re you doing here in the middle of the night? Got another job you need done?” Buddy coughed. “Hey, hand me my smokes, will you?”

“You don’t have time.”

“Yeah. Why’s that?”

Hess raised the Walther and shot him in the chest.

The sun was coming up when Hess arrived at the scrap yard. Levin’s silver Mercedes was parked behind the building. He drove past the yard and parked on Luce, a side street, and crossed Mt. Elliot. He walked through the entrance past the scales into the empty yard. A semi rumbled in behind him, turning around, backing up next to the mountain of scrap metal.

The door to the building was unlocked. He opened it and walked through the entryway and through another door, and down a short hallway, two small cramped offices on one side, an office and toilet room on the other side. There was another office at the end of the hall, this one appreciably larger than the others. It had a desk and furniture grouping behind it. The room was dark, shades drawn over the two windows. His eyes adjusted and he noticed someone asleep on the couch. Hess pulled the Walther, flipped the safety off, crossed the room and stood over Harry Levin on his stomach, asleep. He heard a car drive by, raised the weapon, finger squeezing the trigger.

A woman’s voice startled him. “Harry, what are you doing here so early? Harry—”

It came from the intercom on the desk behind him. Hess walked out of the office and moved down the hall. He heard the woman’s voice again and stepped inside the toilet room. He heard footsteps in the hallway and ducked against the wall, and saw the woman walk by. He closed the door, opened the window and hoisted himself up and through it to the ground.

Hess was in the car when he heard the siren.

“My God, Harry. I thought it was you,” Phyllis said when he came in the office, 6:30 in the morning.

“What happened?”

“Somebody shot Jerry.” Phyllis started crying. “He wanted to be you, Harry. Even dressed like you.” She dried her eyes with a tissue. “What was he doing with your car?”

“We traded. Jerry was supposed to take it in for a tune-up. Lives right near the dealership. He was doing me a favor.”

“Police want to talk to you, the Eye-talian detective with the hair.” There were two Detroit Police cruisers and an unmarked Plymouth sedan in the lot when he pulled in, wondering what the hell was going on. Phyllis handed him a black coffee. He sipped it and walked down the hall, two uniformed cops standing outside his office. Went in, shades up, bright sunlight coming through the window on the east wall. Somebody was taking photographs of Jerry Dubuque dead on the leather couch, blood pooled on the beige industrial carpeting under him, two shell casings on the floor. Harry felt bad, he liked Jerry, felt responsible. Knew Hess had done it. Who else?

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were the intended victim, Mr. Levin,” Detective Mazza said, standing on the other side of his desk in the tan wash-and-wear suit he’d had on last time.

“You sound disappointed,” Harry said.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?”

“If I could,” Harry said.

“Why don’t you try.”

“Want me to make something up? ’Cause that’s what I’d be doing.”

“First an acquaintance of yours, Cordell Sims is shot and now one of your employees.” Mazza took a pen out of his shirt pocket, squatted and picked up a shell casing with it, holding it up so Harry could see it. “But you don’t know anything.”

Mazza smelled like a smoker and had nicotine stains on the index and middle fingers of his right hand.

“What was Jerry Dubuque doing in your office?”

“By the look of it, sleeping one off,” Harry said. “It’s happened before. Jerry occasionally hits the bars in Hamtramck after work. Has a few too many, comes back to the office. It’s the only couch in the place. I’d rather have him sleep here than get on the road.”

“Mr. Dubuque have a drinking problem?”

“He did, he doesn’t any more,” Harry said.

“No sign of forced entry.”

“Jerry wouldn’t have worried about locking the door. Wouldn’t have crossed his mind. The gate out front is locked at night. I’ve got a security man who keeps an eye on the yard, sits in his car and listens to music.”

“What’s his name?”

“Columbus Fletcher. Phyllis, Miss Wampler can tell you how to get in touch with him.”

“What time’s he leave?”

“Between six fifteen and six thirty.”

“What time do you usually get here?”

“Seven.”

“Shooter must’ve parked in front or on a side street across Mt. Elliot, waited for your security man to go. Came through the gate saw your Mercedes in the lot, saw Mr. Dubuque on your couch and shot him. Miss Wampler said she arrived at six fifteen, and I believe the perp was still here. Heard her and went out the bathroom window. It was still open.”

The photographer finished and nodded at Mazza. “All set.” He put the camera in a black bag with a strap, and walked out of the room.

“You keep money around, Mr. Levin?”

“There’s ten thousand dollars in the safe. I told you the last time you were here, it’s a cash business.”

“Do me a favor, check and make sure it’s all there.”

Harry had a vintage Mosler bolted to the floor behind his desk. He turned the chair around, sat leaning forward and opened it. Saw banded stacks of fifties and hundreds. “Looks like it is.”

“So,” Mazza said, “we can rule out robbery as a motive.”

“Unless whoever it was tried to open the safe and couldn’t.”

Mazza took out a pack of Camels, tapped one out, put it between his teeth and lit it. “I think it was planned. Perp comes here sees your car in the lot, sees someone on the couch in your office, thinks it’s you. Same type of gun used on Cordell Sims. There’s something you aren’t telling me. Quite a bit I’d say.” Mazza paused, taking a deep drag on the Camel, blowing out smoke. “This a dope deal gone wrong? You and Cordell in business together?”

“Not even close.”

“Laundering money through the scrap yard?”

Harry frowned, let that one go.

Mazza ran his tongue over his teeth and spit out a loose piece of tobacco. “Where were you last night?”

“Home watching TV,
Columbo
and Johnny Carson.”

“Anyone with you?”

“Why?”

“Mr. Sims decided to check out of Detroit Receiving about midnight,” Mazza said, stubbing his cigarette out in an ashtray on Harry’s desk.

“Can’t say I blame him. Whoever shot him was probably coming back to finish the job.”

“Know anything about it?”

“Why would I?”

“Security guard described you in detail.”

“I doubt it.”

“Then we’ll have you come down, appear in a line-up. How’s that sound?”

“Like you don’t have anything and you’re trying to force it.”

“Any idea the penalty for harboring a fugitive?” Mazza said, pushing his hair off his forehead.

“No, but you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”

Harry did have one thing going for him. Hess thought he was dead.

Cordell felt pain in his shoulder and leg before he opened his eyes and saw her, cute little white girl sitting in a chair, smiling at him. “Who’re you?”

“Franny, Harry’s niece. He asked me to check on you, see how you’re doing.”

“Been better.”

“I’m a nurse. Let me see your wounds.”

She got up, came over to the couch. Took three aspirin out a bottle on the end table, put them in his hand and gave him a glass of water.

“This should help take the edge off.”

He swallowed the aspirin and drank some water, handed her the glass. “What hospital you work at?”

“Providence, but I’m still in school. Not registered yet.”

“Know what you’re doing?” Cordell said.

She gave him a look like, pardon me? Pulled the blue hospital blanket down, lifted his gown and pulled the bandage off his thigh. Stared at it, poked the skin around it. Pulled the bandage off his forearm, looked at the little hole‚ was black ’n’ blue around it. Lifted his arm, checked the other side where the bullet came out. She slipped his right arm out of the gown and checked his shoulder and nodded.

“Am I gonna make it, Doc?”

She grinned. “Looks good. You’re healing well.”

“Motherfucker itches.”

“That’s normal. I want to take you upstairs, put you in a hot tub.”

She helped him up to the bathroom, filled the tub with warm water and Epsom salt, and helped him in.

“Just soak for a while.”

Girl was cool. Didn’t seem nervous seein’ a naked brother. “Want to go out some time?”

“I’ve got a boyfriend.”

“I’ll teach you how to do the Freaky Deaky.”

“I already know it,” Franny said. “If you don’t keep your freak clean you might get shot.”

“How you know about that?”

“I read it in the paper. Call me when you want to get out,” she said, stepped into the hall and closed the door.

When the police left Harry paged through a stack of transaction reports and shippers Jerry had put on his desk the day before. Without Jerry he’d have to put Phyllis in charge for a few days. She could handle it. He gave her a couple blank checks and told her to get more money when she needed it.

“Harry.” Phyllis on the intercom. “Someone named Joyce is on the phone for you.”

“Put her through.” He picked up the receiver. “How you doing?”

“Going out of my mind.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m staying at a friend’s house on the island. Let me give you the address and phone number.”

Harry wrote it down.

“Have you seen Hess? Is he there?”

“No.” He didn’t want to worry her.

“When are you coming down?”

“Tomorrow. Hang in there.”

It was 10:37 a.m. when he got home. Galina’s car was gone. Harry was now convinced that she’d had one too many and walked home. Cordell was on the couch in the den, watching TV, eating a bowl of cereal.

“You’re looking good.”

“Feelin’ better, thanks to your niece. She’s something, Harry.”

“You see a woman come by and get her car that was parked in the driveway?”