" Chris imagined Robin looking through old journals, this one, reliving those days, coming to this page and the words reaching out to grab her.
It was worthless as evidence, but it let you look into her head. Chris closed the journal. It was quiet, Greta not saying a word. He was thinking she'd fallen asleep as he turned his head on the pillow, expecting to see her eyes closed.
She was staring at him. She said, "Is that what I'm doing? With Woody?"
Robin had become the ice woman, blowing her smoke out slow, stroking her braid, a thoughtful act, stroking in time to "Little Girl Blue" in the background, Robin looking at Donnell with quiet eyes, saying, "Man, it's been a long time coming."
"What has?"
"Getting on track and feeling good about it. Yeah, now, finally I can see where we're going." Saying the words with a slight nod of the head, moving with the mellow beat.
Donnell liked how she did that. The woman was in time and looking good, for her age.
"I'm not saying we don't have a problem," Robin said.
"If this Polack, Mankowski, is acting officially, and that was the impression I got, then it's a major problem. Not because he's especially bright-I don't think he is. The way he tried to set me up, get me to talk, didn't show a lot of finesse. But if he's got the whole fucking police force behind him-" "He was kicked off the police,"
Donnell said.
"I've told you that, and he don't like it one bit."
"You think he doesn't like it or you know it?"
"I know it. I talked to the dude."
"Well, if all he wants is money…" She gave a little shrug with the beat.
"He's working for himself, nobody else."
"He told you that?"
This woman could be irritating.
"It was he didn't tell me. He had, I might suspect him.
Look, the dude bumped me up to twenty-five thousand to get your bomb out of the swimming pool. He's in it for bread, nothing else, and he'll keep coming back. I know, I've seen the kind." Donnell hunched over the table on his arms.
"Listen to me. The dude will come back and he'll come back. He'll leave the police if he hasn't done it already. The man smells a score.
But that's only the one problem. I see another one. I see too many people."
"You mean Skip," Robin said.
"Exactly. Your friend Skippy. What do we need him for? See, he's the kind of problem you can tell goodbye and it's gone. Like you say to him you not interested in the deal no more, you give up on it, he leaves."
"I don't think it would be quite that easy," Robin said.
"Sit on it till he goes away. That's easy. What I'm saying to you, I don't see cutting it three ways when we don't need to. I'm looking now at the economics of it. This kind of deal come along, you do it one time, understand?
You pick a number, the most of what you can get, and that's all."
"If that's what you're worried about," Robin said, "there's no problem.
You get half of a two-way split."
"I'm thinking more than half, and your number depends on my number."
"Okay, what's your number?"
"One million. I like the sound of it, I like the idea of it. One million, a one and six oughts."
"Take off and spend it, huh?"
"Stay right where I am. It's none of your business what I do with it."
Donnell watched Robin get out another cigarette saying, "Okay, if you're satisfied with a mil let's go for two and Skip and I split the other one."
Donnell shook his head.
"I get more than you."
"Why?"
"It's my idea."
"Gee, I thought it was mine," Robin said.
Giving him that shitty tone again.
"I mean since I'm the one who called in the first place."
"Yeah, and how'd you expect the man to pay you?
Cash? He suppose to leave it some place you tell him?"
He watched her shrug, being cool.
"That's one way."
"You dumb as shit," Donnell said.
"Can you see the man go in the bank for the money? Drunk as usual, everybody looking at him? Everybody knowing his business?
What did I say to you on the phone? I said, "That gonna be cash or you take a check?" And you got mad, commence to threaten me, saying, "Oh, you want to play, huh?" Giving me all this shit on the phone. You remember? Was only this morning."
Still being cool. Look at her blow the smoke, sip the wine, getting her head straight, what she wanted to say.
Smiling at him now, just a speck of smile showing.
"What I get from that," Robin said, "you were serious.
We could actually get paid by check?"
"There's a way."
"He could stop payment."
"I said there's a way to do it."
"This is wild," Robin said.
"Far out."
She turned her head to gaze off at the piano, listening but not moving, Donnell watching her, remembering the woman in the bathroom a long, long time ago. Pants on the floor, her sweater pushed up, seeing the back of her head in the mirror, all that long hair, seeing a nice dreamy smile in her eyes when he looked at her… Her eyes came back to him from the piano.
"Skip killed a guy one time."
"You mean little Markie?"
"Before. He did it for money. What I'm saying is, you can count on him."
"I admire that kind," Donnell said, "but it don't mean we need him."
"I was thinking he could get rid of our problem, the guy with his hand out."
Donnell hesitated. The idea stopped him, hit him cold.
He didn't want to think about it, but said, "He'd do that?"
"If I asked him to."
"That's all?"
"If you say he's in."
Donnell shrugged, not saying yes or no, maybe not minding the guy being in if you could count on him and take his word. There were things to work out in this deal.
It wasn't entirely set in his mind. Though it seamed to be in Robin's, the way she was smiling for real now, letting it come…
Robin saying, "The extortion corporation, we accept checks. Hey, but we write Woody's driver's license I.D. on the back, right? In case he tries to stiff us." s played scenes, lying in bed in that early morning half-light.
He heard himself tell Jerry Baker, "I go in the guy's swimming pool, remove an explosive device and he gives me twenty-five grand." Jerry says, "You take the device with you?" He tells Jerry, "I left it there but told him not to touch it, and I know he won't." Jerry says, "You should've taken it with you." Jerry's right; he should've.
Jerry says, "But you did take the check."
"Of course I took the check, for Christ sake." Jerry, thinking of all that money, thinking fast, says, "Well, there's a gray area there." He hears himself say to Jerry, "What's gray about it? It's withholding evidence, isn't it?" Jerry, with his many years of experience on the police, says, "That's a matter of interpretation. There's withholding evidence and there's holding evidence. It may be needed in the investigation, it may not be." He hears himself say to Jerry, "You don't see it as a rip?" Jerry says,
"Where's the rip? The guy agreed to the price and you did the job, performed a service."
Chris says, "But in receiving the check for removing evidence, isn't it evidence too?" Jerry says, "Not necessarily.
The explosive device, yeah, is evidence. But now the check, that's definitely a gray area."
Chris pictured doing the scene with Wendell.
"Hey, Wendell? I'd like to ask you something?" The dude lieutenant looks up from his desk.
"Yeah? What?" And that was as far as the scene got. Chris asked himself why he hadn't thought of these questions yesterday, last night.
He wondered if it was to avoid even thinking about it. Finally he asked himself what he believed was a key question: When does holding evidence become withholding evidence?
The answer came unexpectedly, flooding him with a sense of relief:
Monday. He had the weekend to think about it, study that gray area.
Chris got up on an elbow to flip his pillow over to the cool side and paused in the half-light as he heard Greta say, "Oh, my Lord." She was lying with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't think my car was stolen."
Vreta said it must have been her concussion of the brain that made her forget where she parked it. The thing was, twice before when she'd gone to the Playhouse Theater she'd parked in the same aisle on the ground floor of the building, almost in the same exact space both times.
But then last Tuesday, or whenever it was, the place was jammed. She ended up parking on the third level, ran out of there with a lot on her mind having been raped and all and wanting to have Woody arrested, and then so much happened right after, ending up in the hospital… She felt really dumb.
Chris said, Yeah, all that going on. He said he'd drive her to get her car. But then didn't talk much while they were having breakfast. Greta said, "I think about my car and then I think about Woody. I don't know what to do."
Drinking her coffee she said, "And you're no help." She said, "You think I'm a flake, don't you?" He told her it was no big deal, people forgot where they parked their cars all the time. She said, "But what should I do about Woody?"
Chris told her it was a gray area; it depended on how you looked at it.
Giving her that much understanding…
While thinking about the weekend, the two days giving him hope, seeing time enough in there to believe the investigation could all of a sudden be closed when he wasn't looking and he wouldn't be withholding anything. Would he?
In the Cadillac driving downtown Greta said, "Oh, God, I have to tell that guy at the precinct my car wasn't stolen. I know exactly what he's gonna say."
It gave Chris an idea. Stop by 1300 to see Wendell.
Only you forgot it's Saturday, he isn't there. But whoever's on duty verifies it later on. Yeah, Mankowski was here, he was looking for Wendell.
So he told Greta he'd stop at the precinct desk and tell them the car had been returned, that's all; it just showed up. They didn't have to know she forgot where she put it.
Greta said, "Thanks," without much life in it.
On the third level of the parking structure they pulled up next to her blue Ford Escort; Saturday morning not another car near it. Greta said, "Thanks for a nice time."
Chris said, "I'll see you later."
Greta held the door open.
"I'm going home."
"You're coming back, aren't you?"
"I'll have to think about it."
"What's wrong?"
Greta hesitated.
"You're different."
Chris said, "Wait a minute," as she got out of the Cadillac and was closing the door.
"What do you mean, I'm different?" She was standing by her car now, her back to him. He pushed a button to lower the window on the passenger side.
"I'm not different." She didn't turn around; she was unlocking her car.
"I don't feel different." Maybe he was different, but not in the way she thought he was. She was in the car now, starting it. Christ. He got out of the Cadillac and went around to her car; she didn't lower her window. He tapped on the glass with the tip of his finger.
"Ginguh? I'm not different." She looked up at him.
"Really, I'm not." She didn't seem convinced; she looked sad.
Shit.
"What's wrong? Tell me."
"You're different," Greta said.
"How am I different?"
"I don't know, but you are."
She drove off.
Chris locked his dad's car and walked the two blocks to 1300.
Squad Seven's door, Room 500, was straight across the hall from the elevators. Chris walked in, stopped and wanted to turn around and walk out. Saturday morning, and it looked like a convention going on, a gang of people, cops and suspects, or else witnesses. The head homicide cop himself, Inspector Raymond Cruz, was stroking his mustache as he stood talking to Wendell, seated at his desk.
A detective by the name of Hunter was taking a Polaroid shot of a good-looking young black woman, stylish enough to be a Supreme, sitting half turned in a desk chair, her arm hanging behind it, long slender fingers heavy with rings.
The squad's executive sergeant, Norb Bryl, stood by the Norelco coffeemaker with a young black dude in a cream colored suit and sunglasses. Two uniformed evidence techs lounged against a desk with grocery-store sacks bearing red tags. All this activity…
And now Wendell was looking this way and the stylish black woman was looking up past her shoulder at Raymond Cruz going by in his narrow navy suit, top cop and he looked it, his down-curved bandit mustache giving him a solemn expression. His eyes moved and he said, "Chris, how's it going?" Chris hesitated. By the time he said, "Not too bad," the inspector was out the door.
Now Wendell was coming. Chris didn't move, getting ready for him.
Wendell stopped by the door to the interrogation room and said, "I can't talk to you now." Chris wanted to go over and hug him, but gave him an easy shrug instead and said, "No problem." He turned to leave and heard Wendell say, "Wait. Come here a minute." So he had to go over to Wendell standing with his hand on the door, Wendell in shirtsleeves but his paisley tie knotted up there tight. He said,
"These are Hooker's people," keeping his voice low.
"His houseman over there with Bryl, his lady, Moselle, and we got his bodyguard in here, Juicy Mouth.
You know him?"
"He wasn't around," Chris said.
"That's what he tells me. But if Juicy didn't put the bomb in the chair he knows who did."
Chris said, "This hasn't got anything to do with…"
Wendell was shaking his head.
"Doesn't seem like the least connection."
"What about Skip?"
"Skip Gibbs, worked for the film company. You were right. All we got so far, he turned in his rental car. We left off checking with airlines for the moment and got back on Booker."
Chris felt he had to keep going.
"Anybody watching Robin?"
"She's not that good a suspect yet. I don't have the people to sit around in cars."
"I read her notebook. In capital letters she says she's gonna take Mark Ricks for everything she can get."
"And you see the date on the book, seventeen years ago."
"I know, but it was on her desk and she didn't want us to see it. She had it out, not stuck away somewhere."
Wendell said, "I understand what you're saying. I like it, even if it isn't any kind of evidence would hold up. But I have to let Robin sit while I tend to this one."
Chris said in a hurry, because he had to say it right now, get it out,
"There's something else I want to talk to you about."
He kept staring at Wendell, the lieutenant's hand on the doorknob, about to enter, but staring back at him now, a change in his expression, his eyes. Wendell said, "You're not working for me."
"I know that."
"You might, sometime, but you're not now."
Chris didn't say anything.
"I don't want to hear a question I don't have an answer to. Or I don't want to know anything I'd have trouble explaining where I found it out.
You understand?"
Chris nodded.
"Think about it and we'll talk Monday. All right?"
Chris said, "Whatever you say," sounding a little disappointed but dying to get out of there. He turned to go and Wendell touched his arm.
"Wait, take a minute. See if you think this guy knows anything about bombs."
Juicy Mouth sat hunched over, arms resting on thick knees, eyes raised to them coming in: a young black guy with a build, shoulders stretching his silky jacket. He seemed to fill half of this narrow pink room that was no bigger than a walk-in closet. Next to him was a small wooden table, a tin ashtray on it full of old cigarette butts.
Wendell said, "Juicy, this is Sergeant Mankowski, the last person on this earth to see Booker alive."
Chris had a feeling Juicy didn't give a shit, the way he yawned and leaned back against the wall, the pink surface stained from heads resting against it. Chris didn't notice anything unusual about the guy's mouth.
"I've been telling Juicy," Wendell said, "if he didn't actually set the bomb maybe we could lighten up on him, take it down to accessory."
Juicy said, "You gonna have to let me out any minute now. That's light enough."
"Sergeant Mankowski," Wendell said, "was the bomb man there that time.
Talked to Booker, heard his last words…"
What were they? Chris seemed to recall Booker saying, "Where you motherfuckers going?" Something like that.
And saw Juicy Mouth looking at him, his head still pressed to the wall, Juicy saying, "Is that right? If you the bomb man, how come you didn't take the bomb out from under him?"
Chris didn't see anything especially juicy about the guy's mouth, even when he spoke.
"The question was how to get to it," Chris said.
"Ten sticks of-what was it, sixty percent? Rigged to some kind of electronic pressure sensor. Where would you learn to put something like that together?"
No reaction. He wasn't sure Juicy was even listening.
But then the guy said, "You right there with him, with Booker? Looking to see what you had?"
"I cut into the seat cushion," Chris said, "but couldn't get to the works from the front."
"You right there, but you didn't get blown to shit like Booker did?"
"I stepped outside for a minute."
"You did, huh? I stepped out to get some pizza," Juicy said.
"What'd you step out for?"
"We told him don't move, we'll be right back," Chris said, and felt dumb, this big street kid turning if around on him. The kid wearing five hundred dollars worth of clothes, a Rolex watch…
"Step outside and let the man get blown up by his self Juicy said.
"Yeah, well, if it don't mean shit to you and it don't mean shit to me, why we even talking about it?"
"I still have to sit on you," Wendell said.
"Anybody it says on their sheet kills people, been known to, that makes him a suspect."
"Look on the sheet again, man. No convictions."
"You did people for Booker, didn't you? Shot 'em in the back of the head, left 'em out at Metro?"
"Man, this is a bomb," Juicy said.
"You know I didn't fool with no bomb."
"Yeah, but you next to whatever one of the Italians put it there. Once I find out which one, then I can let 'em know it was you told me. See, then I won't have to worry about you no more, you'll be gone. " Juicy said, "Shit. Can't trust nobody, can you?"
Wendell said, "It's nothing personal. It don't mean I think you're an asshole, anything like that, you understand?
Hey, show Sergeant Mankowski why they call you Juicy Mouth. Go on."
Juicy looked up. He said, "Check it out," and Chris thought the sole of a shoe was coming out of the guy's mouth, a big gray tongue that filled his lips from corner to corner, Chris looking at it wondering how the tongue could even fit in the guy's mouth.
"Put it back," Wendell said.
Chris stared, Juicy grinning at him now, until Wendell touched Chris's arm and they left the room, Wendell closing the door after them.
"Can you see him on the playground when he was little," Wendell said,
"showing that ugly thing to the other kids?"
"He's proud of it," Chris said.
"It's what I'm saying. He's like a little kid and we playing with him, take him in there and shoot the shit. We know he helped do Booker, there's no other way it could've been done." They stood by the door to the pink interrogation room, the stylish girl at Hunter's desk watching them over her shoulder, her hand with the rings swinging idly behind her chair.
"All these ones here," Wendell said, "they got their game going, living on the edge. Hooker's houseman, his bodyguard, his lady, the one got him to sit in the chair… We get a feel for that kind of action, huh?
Know when to step outside, so to speak, let them do their own kind of freaky deaky. You remember that sexy dance?
Was about ten years ago. Man, we had people shooting each other over it-two homicides I know of come to mind.
You freaky deak with somebody else's woman you could get seriously hurt."
"Or you could get lucky," Chris said.
Wendell smiled. He said, "All in how you look at it, huh?" and put his hand on Chris's shoulder.
"The inspector likes your style, babe. You ever move back to the city… Anyway, I'll see you Monday."
Chris waited less than a minute for an elevator, took the stairs to seven and hurried down the hall to Sex Crimes. The squad room was dim, lights off, no one here.
He found Greta's Preliminary Complaint Report in the desk with the blue flowers, picked up the phone and dialed her number. He'd filled out her PCR only four days ago; it seemed more like four weeks. After five rings Greta's voice came on: "Hi, you've reached Ginger Jones, but she isn't here right now, doggone it." Chris thinking, Jesus Christ.
"If you want, you can leave a message right after you hear the beep.
"Bye now." Chris waited for the beep and when he heard it he still waited. Finally he said, "Greta? I haven't changed one bit," and hung up. That was all he could say to a machine. He'd try her again later.
But now he didn't know what to do. He sat down to think about it, looking at the blue flowers, a case file, a stack of PCR forms, a worn three-ring binder with DOWNEY written on it, and realized this was Maureen's desk. Well, he'd only been here two days officially, in and out. He looked at notes written neatly on a yellow legal pad, saw the name ROBIN ABBOTT and her phone number, her address on Canfield, and another phone number and address with MOTHER written after it, then a dash and the name MARILYN. Below this Maureen had written B.H. POLICE and a number. B.H. for Bloomfield Hills, where Maureen had said the mother lived.
Chris got up and went over to his own desk piled with case folders, looked at the typed list of Sex Crimes squad members beneath the plastic cover of the desk pad and phoned Maureen. They said hi and Chris asked her if she'd ever got hold of Robin's mother.
"I tried all day yesterday."
"How come, Maureen?"
"Remember Robin saying she kept all those books and newspapers at her mom's? I wondered if she kept any other stuff there, since Wendell didn't find anything."
"But you haven't talked to her, the mom."
"I got a busy signal for about ten minutes, then no answer after that,"
Maureen said, "so I called the Bloomfield Hills police. They said the mother was away on a trip."
"But somebody was on the phone."
"I told them that. They said it was probably the maid, or maybe painters, rug cleaners, you know."
"Are they gonna check?"
"They said they'd look into it. Why, what're you up to?"
"Not a thing. You tell Wendell you called and got a busy signal?"
"Yeah, but he didn't seem too excited."
"That's all you can do, Maureen."
"Have you talked to him?"
"He's busy. There a lot of people killing each other."
She said, "Where are you?"
"I'm not sure," Chris said, "but if I find out I'll let you know."
He went back to Maureen's desk, dialed Robin's number and listened to four rings before she answered: her voice softer than Maureen's, sounding bored as she said hello.
"Robin? It's Skip."
There was a silence.
Chris said, "What's the matter?"
Now a long pause before she said, "Who is this?"
"I just told you, it's Skip."
She hung up.
Chris waited about twenty seconds and dialed Robin's number again. The line was busy. He looked at Maureen's notes, dialed Robin's mother's number, got a busy signal and continued to listen to it, telling himself it didn't mean it was Skip. Telling himself the hell it didn't. It was, it was Skip. During the next couple of minutes he dialed Robin's number five times before it finally rang and she answered.
"Hi. This is Chris Mankowski."
He waited. See if she remembered him. Picturing her in that dingy room with the zingy red design painted on the wall, Robin trying to think fast, get it together, wanting to sound cool when she came on.
She said, "You just called, didn't you?" With the bored tone.
"And you hung up on me," Chris said.
"I tried to call you back, but I guess you were talking to Skip."
There was a silence.
"Hang up and call Donnell this time. If he hasn't already told you about me, ask him. Mankowski?"
She said, "I know who you are, but that's about it.
You're either a cop or a two-bit hustler and I don't know why I'm even talking to you."
"I'll drop around and tell you," Chris said, "in about an hour."
"I won't be here. I have to see a lawyer."
"That's not a bad idea."
There was a pause before Robin said, "Well, if you're going to be downtown later…"
"How about Galligan's?"
She said, "No, I'll meet you at Hart Plaza about six," and hung up.
Chris waited, dialed her number and got a busy signal.
He copied phone numbers and addresses, Greta's, Robin's and her mother's, on a sheet of notepaper and put it in his coat pocket. When he dialed Robin's number again the line was still busy.
He couldn't think of why she wanted to meet him outside and not in a bar. There was not much doubt Skip would be with her. He didn't know Skip, if Skip was mean and nasty or what. He believed Skip was the type-judging from the way he put a bomb together-who didn't give a shit and would let you know it. Skip and Juicy Mouth.
Chris left Sex Crimes and went down to six, to Firearms and Explosives, his old hangout. He had turned in his police.38 along with his shield and I.D. The gun his dad had given him, the Clock 17 auto, was still here in a locked cabinet. He filled the magazine with 9-millimeter rounds, remembering the St. Antoine Clinic doctor trying to make something out of it, asking him if he liked guns and getting into all that shit about spiders. Spiders, Jesus, who worried about spiders.
Skip couldn't stand it for long down in the basement rec room, being underground. It seemed nice at first. The bar had a pinkish mirror back of it that made you look tan and healthy while you sat there getting smashed, all by yourself. He had to stay clear of the first floor, other than slipping into the kitchen now and then; somebody could look in a window and see him. So he hung out upstairs in Robin's mom's bedroom. It had a bed with a canopy over it, a fireplace and living room furniture, it was so big, and a bathroom full of different kinds of bubble bath, lotions, skin creams and shit and really smelled good in there.
Saturday afternoon lying on the couch he watched a movie on TV called Straight Time that had one of his all-time favorite actors in it, Harry Dean Stanton. Jesus, but the guy made it look so real, the nervous state you were in pulling a stickup.
Then to have your partner turn geek on you and you can't get him out of the fucking jewelry store-Skip could imagine that feeling. He was starting to get it with Robin as she turned from fun-loving to being a female hard-on. Harry Dean Stanton had died in that picture only because he made a bad decision and agreed to associate with gee ks Had to run when their driver spooked and got shot off a fence by the cops.
It was weird. This morning Skip had caught the tail end of The Sack of Rome on cable TV and watched himself get killed as one of Attila the Hun's guys. He felt he looked like a biker in drag. On location near Almeria he was run over by chariots and hacked to death with those short Roman swords. Then had to lie in the sun among the dead and wounded talking Spanish to each other while the director and his star sat in an air-conditioned trailer drinking German beer and shooting the shit. After a couple of months they moved up to Madrid to a five-million-dollar set of the Roman forum. Here, Skip was killed several more times in close shots wearing different wigs and fake animal skins, having been spotted as a good dier. Twice in Almeria the star himself, Steve Walton playing the Centurion, Fidelus, had killed him. But when they picked Skip to die at his hands on the forum set, part of the big finish, Walton looked Skip up and down and said, "He's too short." Ray Heidtke, the director, said, "We're in Spain, Steve.
He's the biggest one we have." Skip, almost six foot, sized up Walton as he and the director argued, Walton was maybe six three but knock-kneed and had hips like a girl. Ray Heidtke said, "You sense this Hun coming at you from behind, but you wait. Time it just right.
You turn, nothing to it, and stick him as he's about to take your nuts off."
Fourteen times Skip, hiding behind a statue, jumped down from the pedestal about eight feet off the ground, landed in his Hun shoes, Christ, that were like bedroom slippers, and fell the first couple of times.
"Cut!" After that Skip had his moves down, but then Walton was never ready, the guy screaming, "He's coming too soon!" Ray Heidtke said to Skip, "Pause after you land. Give it a three count. A thousand and one, a thousand and two…"
Walton said, "You tell me it makes sense, I have to stand here while you teach this asshole his timing?" That was when Skip decided to kill the star. Stick him in the throat with the wooden sword and push him down the temple steps. Ray Heidtke said, "Here we go." Skip got up on the statue and when the A.D. yelled for action he jumped, paused, but only for a second instead of a three-count, ran at Steve Walton, raising the wooden sword to ram it into him, and the knock-kneed son of a bitch turned too fast, stumbled, lunged trying to stay on his feet and drove his wooden sword into Skip, into that tender area where the leg meets the groin. The puncture wound wasn't serious; it was the infection that kept Skip in the hospital ten days.
After, he tried to go back to work, but they wouldn't let him on the set.
That's what could happen to you associating with gee ks You could get hurt and fired or, in Harry Dean Stanton's case, get shot off a fence in Beverly Hills.
Right after Harry Dean's geek partner drove off at the end of the picture, going down a highway on his way to hell, Skip heard somebody downstairs. A minute later Robin was in the room. She came over to Skip on the couch, kissed him on the head and he thought to himself, Look out.
"You're moving," Robin said, stepping over to the TV to turn it off.
"Let's get your clothes and your dynamite."
He asked her how come.
On the phone a couple of times she'd mentioned this guy Mankowski, the suspended cop, and Skip didn't like the sound of him. What she told now, about Mankowski knowing he was here, he liked even less, saying to Robin, "I might just go back to L. A. You and Donnell could be cutting me out as it is, once I do the heavy work for you. I've an idea what you want, too. Find out where this Mankowski parks his car and wire it up."
"You'd do it, wouldn't you?" Robin said.
She hooked a leg over the flowery arm of the couch, started fooling with his ponytail, and once again Skip told himself to look out.
"We haven't been able to talk much," Robin said.
Skip knew that. He waited.
"Donnell wants to cut you out."
Skip knew that too. It stood to reason.
"He thinks he's calling the shots, so I play along.
You're going to be proud of me, the way I've worked it out."
Skip let her play with his ponytail.
"I have to call Donnell before we leave," Robin said.
"See if he'll do us a favor."
Skip kept quiet. Let her talk.
"We do need him. At least till Monday morning when the bank opens.
Donnell wants one million even, he likes all those oughts, as he says.
But our take has to be less than his because he's the brains. You believe it? I said fine, we'll go in for seven hundred thousand."
"That's a familiar number," Skip said.
"Our original idea. But if you have no objections let's go for the whole thing."
"Cut Donnell out."
"It wouldn't be hard, the way I see it work."
Skip began to relax, feeling a little better about his one-time old lady.
"Sweetheart, tell me how we get paid."
"Woody gives us a check."
Skip grinned at her.
"You're cuckoo, you know it?"
Robin was shaking her head and stroking her braid at the same time.
"Monday morning, as soon as the bank opens, Woody calls the Trust Department and has a million seven transferred to his commercial account. We see him do it, so we know the check's good."
"We're holding a gun on him, or what?"
Robin shook her head, giving him that faint smile, and Skip closed one eye, looking up at her, trying to see if there was a hole in her idea.
This was kind of fun.
He said, "Well, shit, Woody can stop payment any time right after."
Robin said, "Not if he's dead, he can't."
Skip said, "Uh-huh, and if you don't see giving Donnell his share… I suppose there's a big explosion of some kind and the two of them are found underneath the rubble."
Robin said, "Hey, there's an idea."
Skip looked down the road, thinking about it.
"The cops find out we took a check off him for a million seven… It has to be made out to one of us and we put it in a bank. You don't just cash a million seven. They're gonna find it out."
Why was she grinning at him?
"The check isn't made out to either of us," Robin said.
"It's pay to the order of-you ready? Nicole Robinette."
It took Skip a moment.
"That's you, huh? Your book name."
"Woody doesn't know it yet," Robin said, "but he's buying theatrical rights to all four of my novels, herein referred to as the "Fire Series." Diamond Fire, Emerald Fire-" "Jesus Christ," Skip said.
"Gold Fire and Silver Fire. I'm meeting a lawyer," Robin said, looking at her watch, "guy I used to know. He's coming to his office on Saturday as a special favor. I typed up a Purchase Agreement and Assignment of Rights, pretty much boilerplate, from standard contracts I picked up when I worked in New York. He'll look them over, make sure they're okay."
Skip said, "This guy owe you one?"
"I'm going to pay him," Robin said, "if he asks. Maybe he will, I don't know."
"I bet you make sure he doesn't."
"Anyway, we get Woody's signature on the contracts, so it looks legit, for after. Okay, we deposit his check in Nicole Robinette's account and then-listen to this-I write checks payable to you and me in our own names, and a couple of the names we used when we were underground.
Like good old Scott Wolf will get a check. What do you think?"
"I liked being Scotty Wolf," Skip said, "he was a nice guy. That other one I used-the hell was it? Derrick Powell-when I was living in New Mexico. But, shit, those IDs're old, they've expired."
"For a million seven," Robin said, "I'll bet we can think of ways to get them renewed, or make up new ones.
I'll have to reactivate Diane Young and Betsy Bender."
Skip said, "Man, I remember Betsy Bender, with her 'fro. That motel in L.A. off Sunset. I wouldn't mind bending her again right now." He softened his eyes at Robin, waiting to give her a nice grin.
But she wasn't looking. Robin got up from the arm of the couch sounding like she was thinking out loud, telling him she was going to have to make up contracts between the fake names and Nicole Robinette.
For different services the fake names provided. Otherwise the bank would report the deposit to the IRS and Nicole would owe… Christ, at least five hundred thousand dollars. Or she'd make up invoices or some goddamn thing, from the fake names to Nicole.
Skip watched her turn and head for the phone now, by her mom's canopied bed.
"I almost forgot. I have to call Donnell."
Skip said, "How do you like it?"
Robin dialed before she looked over.
"How do I like what?"
"Being in the straight world."
Mr. Woody, seeming almost of sound mind but wet eyed drunk, hooked onto the word "codicil" from somewhere in his past life, telling Donnell that's what it was, a codicil, like an addendum. You didn't scribble a codicil, it was a legal document and ought to be typewritten.
So they had to look through the cabinets in the library for the typewriter: found a favorite flashlight the man had misplaced; found tapes of monster movies, from when he was on that kick; came across the black athletic bag that had been put there by Mankowski, Mr. Woody wanting to know what was in it and Donnell telling him it was just stuff in there, nothing important. He put the typewriter on the desk and started copying what he'd written yesterday in longhand-about the man leaving him at least two million if and when he ever died-taking forever, looking for each letter as he poked the keys. So the man said to let him type it. He sat down and fussed, abused the typewriter, reading with his wet eyes as he typed, but damn if he didn't get it done. Finished, pulled the sheet out of the typewriter and signed it.
There it was, scrawled right at the bottom in big loops, Woodrow Ricks.
Donnell picked up the sheet of paper and kissed it, the man not looking, stumbling away from the desk, starting to take his clothes off for his afternoon swim.
The phone rang.
Donnell slipped that lovely codicil into a desk drawer, picked up the phone and heard Robin's voice say, "Hi, it's me. How you doing?" He told her he couldn't talk now. But she was in a hurry and said she needed a favor, asking him if he could get somebody to do a job. He told her just a minute and put his hand over the phone.
"Mr. Woody, you take off your clothes at the swimming pool. Go on now. I be right there."
The man shuffled out and Donnell kept his hand on the phone a while longer thinking, Shit, the man could fall in the pool and drown and it would be too soon. The lawyer had to get the codicil first and put it in the will. Then the man could fall in the pool and drown or drink himself to death or hit his head on the toilet…
So he hurried talking to Robin and agreed, okay, to get somebody, yeah, uh-huh, saying he understood when Robin said, "We want to take him out, but not all the way," and let her tell him why it wouldn't be good to have Skip do the job, risk his getting busted. Not at this point, blow the deal. Donnell had questions he didn't ask. He told her he'd see.
Robin said he had to do more than see, he had to get somebody. She said this was crucial and Donnell said all right, he'd do it, but right now had to do something else. Hung up and ran down the hall to the swimming pool.
The man was already in the water, a scene of peace and contentment, floating naked on the rubber raft, fat little hands flapping at the water, barely moving him… See?
Everything was fine. Beautiful.
The man's voice raised to call.
"Donnell?"
"I'm right here."
"I want Arthur Prysock instead of Ezio Pinza."
"I don't blame you."
"For a change."
"Yes sir, you got it."
"
"On the Street Where You Live."
" "One of my favorites too, Mr. Woody."
What was wrong with this street where he lived, this house? Sit and wait for the man one day to take his last drink, throw up and die. What was the hurry to have a lot of money if he wasn't going anywhere? He believed he could trust Robin to give him his million out of the check, scare her ass not to think otherwise. This Skippy he'd have to see about. Best now to keep it moving, get it over with and done. Million seven, all the different kind of money accounts and shit the man had, he wouldn't even miss it… Sleeping on his rubber boat, Arthur Prysock running his voice up and down the street, belting the shit out of that old tune. Donnell brought the phone from the bar to the table and dialed a number.
He said, "Juicy, tell me what you been doing," and listened to this young dude growl and breathe animal sounds into the phone, in a bad mood after visiting the pink room up in Homicide, sitting hours in that closet while they asked him the same shit.
Donnell said, "You out of work, you out of finances. I have a man for you needs to be vamped on. Tell me what you charge to bust his leg, put him in the hospital about a month."
Juicy said, "I'm tired."
Donnell said, "Take you two minutes from the time he gets out of his Cadillac. Polack name Mankowski, not near big as you."
Juicy said, "Mankowski, shit, I know that name, that man a cop."
Donnell straightened him out. The man was suspended, didn't have a badge or a gun no more, was out of business.
Juicy said, "They took his gun, huh?… He's the motherfucker let Booker blow his self up."
Donnell said, "I thought was you and Moselle did that."
Juicy said, "I wasn't there. You understand? He was there, I wasn't.
He let it happen to my man. Yeah, I'll bust his legs good."
"Just one."
"I'll give you a deal for the same price. I'll put him away."
"Juicy?"
"I'll take him out someplace and lose his ass. Nobody ever see him again."
"Juicy? How much just for the one leg?"
Saturday afternoon Chris had time to kill, so he walked the few blocks from 1300 to the Renaissance Center and went to the show. He saw Lethal Weapon and watched how Mel Gibson took care of the bad guys;
Chris thinking, So that's what you do, you shoot 'em. Mel Gibson played a burnout and supposedly didn't care if he got killed or not, which was harder for Chris to believe than how good Mel was with his fifteen-shot Beretta. Chris's pistol, the Clock auto, began to dig into his groin as he sat there, so he slipped it into his coat pocket in the dark of the theater watching Mel Gibson. Pretty cool for a burnout. Though he couldn't imagine a homicide cop being allowed to dress that scruffy, even in L.A. Homicide cops were dudes.
Eleven years ago, when Chris was working out of the Twelfth Precinct in a radio car, there were a couple of guys known as the pizza bandits, white guys who specialized in the armed robbery of private homes. One of them would ring the bell standing there with a pizza box; the resident would open the door to say he didn't order a pizza and the second guy would come out of the bushes wearing a ski mask. They'd punch out the man of the house, make the wife, if she wasn't too old, take her clothes off and fool around with her and then haul away the TVs, silverware, jewelry and so on. They were working through a home not far from where Woody Ricks now lived when the maid got a chance to call 911. It was given to Chris and his partner, robbery in progress, and when they arrived Chris went around to cover the rear while his partner called for backup. Two cars came to assist, the second one wailing, its flashers on, and the pizza bandits dropped what they were doing and ran out the back door. Chris saw guns in their hands and came a hair away from firing. But he didn't, he put his.38 on them and said, "Right there. Don't move," thinking of other things he could've said. Freeze. Drop the guns. They stopped dead, both guys. Chris raised his voice a notch.
"Don't move. " One of the guys spoke up fast.
"It's cool," in an urgent tone of voice.
"Nobody's moving."
Chris raised his voice another notch.
"Don't fucking move a muscle!" The first guy screamed back at him,
"I'm not moving, man! Look at me!" As the second guy screamed, "I'm not fucking moving!" That was the way it happened, three guys in a backyard at night holding revolvers, all of them scared to death one of the guns was going to go off.
Two nights later Chris answered a call, disturbance in a working-class neighborhood, a family argument. He and his partner walked into a house and here was a guy in his undershirt drunk out of his mind holding a gun on his wife, a woman in hair curlers and a ratty pink housecoat, crying, her nose running… That time Chris kept his voice down, saying to the guy, "You don't want to shoot your wife. Give me the gun." Didn't want to shoot his wife-the guy was dying to shoot her and he did, shot her twice before Chris grabbed the gun away from him, twisting it out of his hand.
The woman suffered superficial wounds, went into Emergency that Saturday night and was out of the hospital Monday morning. The guy suffered broken fingers and a shoulder injury where his arm was yanked out of its socket and it kept him in therapy a year. When he had to quit his job at Detroit Forge and Axle he sued the city, the police and retired to Deltona, Florida, on the settlement. Chris's precinct commander said, "Why didn't you shoot the son of a bitch?"
That's what Mel Gibson would've done, shot the drunk spot welder dead.
Then you see Mel having to live with it and the next time he has to pull his gun he chokes when he should be squeezing off rounds and because of it he either gets shot or his partner does, the partner dies and so on.
Before leaving the theater Chris switched the Clock auto from his coat pocket back to his waist, the big grip against his belly. It was five thirty. He had a half hour, time to go across the street and have a couple. Get ready for his meeting.
Late Saturday afternoon, hardly anybody in the place, you could see what Galligan's looked like; you could see the booths, the posters and photographs on the walls, the brass rail separating the tables from the bar. Chris got a bourbon mist. A guy with a convention badge and a New York accent told him he was attending the dry cleaners show at Cobo Hall. He said he thought Detroit only had shot-and-a-beer joints, this place could be on Third Avenue, Upper East Side. Chris told the guy Detroit had everything: at least one of each. The guy said yeah, was that right? Chris excused himself; he had to make a phone call.
When he was living with Phyllis and they used to meet here after work she'd say, "Hi, guy," or "Hi, love," or once in a while, "Hi, tiger," and he'd feel like an asshole in that five o'clock press of young execs and secretaries turning to see who the tiger was. Phyllis wasn't trying to be funny, she was serious. It was her idea, after spending all day in the Trust Department of Manufacturers National Bank, of being hip. Phyllis knew who Sigourney Weaver was, but not Doodles.
When she answered the phone and he said hi, Phyllis said, "Hi, guy.
I've been wondering when you'd call."
He could see her in a silky negligee holding the phone in the crook of her neck, hair up, foot on a chair, cotton balls wedged between her toes.
"I want to ask you something," Chris said.
"If you had called yesterday-no, Thursday," Phyllis said, "I might've given in, asked you to come home. I was feeling sort of down, to tell you the truth. Chris? We did have some laughs, didn't we?"
He tried to think.
Living with Phyllis, most of the time it meant watching her get ready:
Phyllis bathing, painting her nails, anointing her big-girl body with lotions, putting on flimsy, see through undergarments that showed dark places… He gave her a pair of musical panties one time; you pressed the rose and it played the theme from Love Story-"Where do I begin, da da da da da da da… "-which got a laugh, but not much of one. Undergarments were her vestments. But then she'd "dress for power," as she called it, cover that soft white body in a business suit, and go off to the bank.
He began to say, "Phyllis…?" but she beat him.
"I met a guy yesterday, Chris."
Then paused, and it intrigued him just enough that he said, "Yeah?"
"A neat guy. Bob owns quite a large plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They manufacture dry-cleaning solvents, dyes, spot removers…"
Chris said, "I guess somebody has to."
Phyllis said in her grave tone, "That isn't fair, Chris."
"What isn't?"
"Taking how you feel out on Bob. Listen, I'm really sorry it didn't work. I tried, I'm sure you did too. It's just one of those things."
"Just one of those crazy flings," Chris said.
There was another pause.
A trip to the moon on some kind of wings. Gossamer.
"I think I detect a certain tone," Phyllis said.
"I know you, Chris. I know when you're upset. Your friend Jerry told me what happened and I thought, Oh, the poor guy.
On top of everything else."
"What did he tell you?"
"About your suspension."
"Phyllis, I just want to ask you something."
She said, "If you want my opinion, I think it's the best thing that could happen to you. Now you've got a chance to realize your potential and go for it. Get into marketing, that's where the action is, Chris, where it's happening."
"In marketing." It amazed him she could talk like that in the kind of underwear she wore.
"In a business that's on the move. You're a bright guy, Chris, and you're not afraid to take risks. Think of how many years you could've lost your hands, or even your life.
We don't have to go into that, do we? The point I want to make: What did you stand to gain in return? Nothing. No bonus, no profit participation… Chris, my friend Bob that I mentioned? He started out on the road selling days. He worked his way up to sales manager, director of marketing, and when his dad retired he was made president and executive chairman of the board."
"Phyllis?"
"Yes, Chris."
"I was wondering, if a guy transfers money from a trust account to a business account and writes you a check, is it good right away, or you have to wait for something to happen?"
There was a silence this time.
Chris waited. He thought of something else and said, "Is this Bob by any chance married?"
Skip strolled through Hart Plaza from Jefferson Avenue down to the embankment close to the river. He took a moment to look at Canada, then strolled back across the sweep of pavement, past a tubular arch of sheet metal, the Noguchi fountain, a mist of water shining on it. A block from here there was a metal sculpture of Joe Louis's fist and forearm, artwork for a workingman's town. Skip's gaze wandered, ready to settle on any guy in his late thirties who could be a cop: a guy with a certain amount of heft standing in one place, waiting, eyes moving. He spotted a few black guys who could go either way, pushers or narcs, but no one who met his idea of what Mankowski would look like. So he went across Jefferson to Galligan's, walked in at ten to six, and there was the guy, Mankowski, sitting at the bar.
Skip was pretty sure. The guy didn't have the heft Skip thought he would, but he was the right age and had enough of a cop look: like an ex-ballplayer who'd spent most of his years in the minors. There was one other guy down the bar and couples wearing convention badges in two of the booths and that was it. Skip took a stool on Mankowski's left, leaving a stool between them, and asked the bartender for a scotch and water. After taking a good sip, he leaned on the bar, turned his head and looked past his shoulder at Mankowski. s had asked the bartender how the Tigers did today and Tommy told him they were playing tonight, Cleveland was in town. Saying there were only about five day games on Saturday this year. Saying all the beer drinkers'd be in about ten thirty. Chris had watched the guy in the black satin jacket come in and caught a glimpse of the movie name on the back, in red, as the guy looked around.
After Tommy stepped over and poured the guy a scotch, Chris heard him say:
"You ever been to Perry's in San Francisco? It's on Union Street. I swear this place looks just like it."
"It looks like some place to everybody," Chris said.
"Maybe that's the idea."
"Well, it's handy. You stay at any of the hotels, it's right here."
Chris said, "Yeah, it's right here." He took a quarter turn on the stool to face the guy and said, "But where's Robin? Didn't she come with you?"
The guy stayed low, looking past his shoulder. He turned his head to take a drink and then looked this way again.
"We ever met, you and I?"
"No, this's the first time."
"Well, I'm gonna have to ask, how'd you make me?"
Chris said, "I know you're not in the dry-cleaning business, Skip.
Maybe it's the ponytail, or the way you talk to your shoulder, like you're in the chow hall at Milan, I don't know. Or it's just you look dirty. You know what I mean?"
Chris watched the guy straighten and do a little number, a head shake as though he'd been hit. Skip said, "Hey, I don't want any part of you, man. Take it easy, okay?"
Chris touched the stool between them.
"Sit here. I want to tell you something I won't have to raise my voice."
Skip shrugged and then slid over, bringing his drink with him, saying,
"I know who you are, man. You're still playing the dick with me. Once a dick-am I right? I bet when you guys had some poor asshole in the chair, asking him questions, I bet you played the hardass, didn't you?
Show 'em no fucking mercy."
Chris said, "No, I was- always the nice guy. I'd stick up for the assholes and pretty soon they're dying to tell me anything I want to know. Like I say to you, Can I buy you a drink? Or I say, I understand you shoot dynamite like a pro. Rub your ego, see. Then I ask you where Robin is and you tell me. That's how it works."
"She'll meet you after," Skip said.
"Shit, you got me to talk."
"Why didn't she come with you?"
"Says she doesn't know you well enough. See, we got conflicting opinions as to what the fuck you're up to. If you're not a cop anymore, what are you? Things like that."
"I'm on you now," Chris said.
"Jesus, I know that, but what else? All I have, you understand, is hearsay. I'm suppose to find out what your game is, before you talk to Robin. If I don't like what I hear then you don't talk to her. It's like that."
"All you have to know," Chris said, "I don't want to see anything happen to Woody."
"You don't work for him. Or do you?"
"I don't want to see him get hurt. I don't want to even see him nervous or upset. If I do, I'll pull the chain on you and you're gone."
Skip leaned closer, sliding his elbow along the bar.
"You're telling me what you personally don't want to see happen. Am I right?"
"That's what I said."
"What I mean is, you're not playing the dick with me now. This's you talking. And what you don't want is anything could mess up the shakedown you got working." He said, "Am I right?" Grinning at Chris now.
"You get all ready to make your move and somebody steps in front of you. Have to line up, huh, to get a piece of the guy. So you're saying if anything happens to blow your deal, you'll turn hardass dick and we'll be sorry. Well, I can't fault you for thinking like that.
Shit, I would too."
"Where's Robin?"
Skip hesitated, easing back, picking up his drink.
"You want to tell her yourself, huh?"
Chris said, "I want to make sure she understands."
"I can tell her, if that's all you're worried about."
"Where is she?"
Skip hesitated again.
"It's up to you. She's over in a parking lot behind St. Andrews Hall.
Couple blocks from here."
"I know where it is."
"Sitting in a red VW."
"I want to see her alone," Chris said.
"You wait here."
Skip pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to glance at his