Harry got back from a meeting with his US steel client in Pittsburgh at 3:30 in the afternoon, stopped at the yard on his way home. He walked in the office and Phyllis told him there was a message for him on the answering machine.
“Here, want to listen to it?” She pressed the button.
“Harry, Cordell. What’s going on? I hear you came by. Miss me already? I’ll get back to you.”
It was Cordell’s voice but Harry had no idea what he was talking about, had expected him to call back but he didn’t.
“And some guy named Ray Meade,” Phyllis said. “Southern accent.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He sounded like you were friends.”
“That’s what salesmen do.”
That evening, Harry was going through the main section of the Detroit News and saw a one-column article with a headline that said:
Gunman Sought in Shooting Outside Detroit Nightclub
The article went on to explain how the victims, Cordell Sims, twenty-one, and Rochelle Campbell, twenty, both from Detroit, had walked out of the Parizian nightclub on Linwood Avenue, entered Mr. Sims’ 1970 Dodge, and, according to witnesses, were shot by a lone gunman. Ms. Campbell was dead on arrival at Henry Ford Hospital. Mr. Sims remained in critical condition. Police were investigating.
Harry figured the shooting might be payback for something in Cordell’s past, his days selling heroin. Still, it made him uneasy. Made him think of Hess. He took the Colt out of his coat. Walked around the house checking the windows and doors, making sure they were locked. Looked out at the front yard from his bedroom. There was a Chevy he’d never seen before parked on the street. It wasn’t one of the neighbors’. Was he being paranoid?
He checked the back of the house, glancing down at the patio, and the back yard that had a five-foot-high wooden fence around the perimeter. It was too dark to see anything. He went downstairs, moved through the dining room to the French doors and saw someone on the patio, looking in the kitchen windows.
He drew the Colt, went out the side door on the driveway, came around the back of the house and saw Galina in a trench coat, warm September night. He lowered the gun, she hadn’t seen it, slipped it in his pants pocket. “Galina, what’re you doing?”
“I want to surprise you, Harry.”
“You did.”
She stepped toward him, wrapped her arms around him. He stood rigid.
“What’s the matter? I think you would be happy to see me.”
“I thought you were a burglar.”
“Harry, you don’t even lock your door.” She frowned. “And you are not glad to see me. I can see it in your face.”
He wasn’t in the mood. “I have something I have to do tonight. Can I call you tomorrow?”
She opened her trench coat and flashed him. “What you are missing.”
He knew what he was missing. He watched her walk across the backyard. She went through the gate in the fence and disappeared. He walked back around the house to the front, scanned the street. The Chevy was gone.
Harry decided it was time to call Joyce, tell her what was going on. He dialed the number Stark had given him.
Heard a soft, quiet voice say, “Hello.”
“Joyce, it’s Harry Levin.”
Silence for a beat. “Harry, my God, what is going on, where are you?” She sounded upset.
“Detroit.”
“I’ve tried calling Lisa Martz like thirty times. It just rings. I’ve been going crazy. I contacted the Munich police, they wouldn’t tell me anything. Harry, I’ve been dying to talk to you.”
He decided to give it to her straight. “The Nazi you saw on Leopoldstrasse, his name is Ernst Hess. He was in charge of the killing squad that day in the woods outside Dachau. And he’s now a politician in Bavaria.” Harry paused. “Hess killed your ex-husband and his fiancee, thinking she was you.”
“My God.” She paused. “It never occurred to me.”
“Why would it?” He took a breath. “Hess killed Lisa, her father and her partners.”
“Do you think he’s coming for us?”
“I don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“We’ll go to the police.”
“And tell them what? Have you seen Hess? Has he threatened you?”
“This is crazy. No one can help us? What are we going to do?”
“Do you have a friend you can stay with? Somewhere you can go till I can get down there?”
“I’m a realtor. I have listings and appointments.”
“Have someone cover for you. You’ve got to get out of there. Pack a bag and leave as soon as you can. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Don’t go near your office.”
Harry slept with the Colt on the table next to his bed. Thought it was preferable to putting it under his pillow, squeeze the trigger in the middle of the night, blow his head off. He took it in the bathroom the next morning when he showered, needed to get used to having it with him.
He got to the yard early. Talked to Jerry Dubuque. Jerry ran the operation, made sure they had enough scrap to keep up with demand, made sure the trucks were loaded and the deliveries were on time. Harry ran the business, handled the clients, took care of the payables and receivables, made sure they had enough cash to buy what they needed.
Jerry came in the office, sat across the desk from him. He had started dressing like Harry, wearing khakis and blue button-down-collar shirts, black loafers and Wayfarer sunglasses. Phyllis had noticed too and mentioned it.
“Hey, I haven’t had a chance to ask, how was your vacation? Went to Germany, right? What’d you do?”
Harry said, “Visited my old neighborhood.”
“I was toying with the idea of going to the Olympics next year. What do you think?”
“Better get your tickets.” Harry sipped his coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. “Let me ask you something. See anything suspicious the past couple days?”
Jerry frowned. “Like what?”
“Like seeing the same car keep driving by.” It sounded lame. He should’ve thought this through a little better.
“Where’re you going with this?”
“Like somebody stopping out front, looking around.” That didn’t sound much better.
“Harry, what the hell’re you talking about?”
Phyllis opened the door, came in, closed it and whispered, “Harry, there’s a detective out here wants to talk to you.”
“Send him in.”
Jerry got up with his coffee, gave him a puzzled look. “You in some kind of trouble, Harry?”
Good question.
Jerry and Phyllis walked out of the room and a short dark-haired guy walked in, tan wash-and-wear suit looking out of season in October, striped tie, scuffed brown shoes. He had a lot of hair parted low on the side, combed across his forehead, and wide, heavy sideburns to the bottom of his ears.
“Detective Frank Mazza, Mr. Levin.” He took out his badge, flashed it in diminished formality. Didn’t offer to shake hands. Suit coat coming open as he came toward the desk, a revolver in a holster on his right hip.
“Have a seat,” Harry said. Arm outstretched, indicating the chair.
Without expression Mazza said, “You know why I’m here?”
“You found my business card in Cordell Sims’ wallet. You talked to his mother, she said I stopped by the house the other day, but it wasn’t me.”
“No, who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you know Mr. Sims?”
“I read in the paper he’s in critical condition,” Harry said. “What’s the story, is he going to make it?”
“You own a firearm, Mr. Levin?”
“I’ve got a license to carry a Colt Python.357 Magnum.” It had expired about six weeks earlier. No reason to mention that.
“That’s a lot of gun.”
“I carry a lot of money. Scrapping’s a cash business.”
“How do you know Mr. Sims?” He pushed his hair back off his forehead.
“We’re friends. I see him occasionally.”
“Do you shoot heroin?”
“Do I look like I shoot heroin?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Never in my life.”
“Do you use drugs, Mr. Levin?”
“I smoked weed one time at an Allman Brothers concert. Got home, ate everything in the refrigerator.” He paused. “Where’s Cordell?”
“You know who shot him?” Frank Mazza said.
“No idea,” Harry said. “You didn’t happen to find nine-millimeter Parabellum shell casings at the scene, did you?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Just curious.”
Mazza combed his hair back with his fingertips. “But you don’t know who shot him, huh?”
Harry shook his head.
“Maybe you should come down to 1300, see if we can jog your memory.”
“You’d be wasting your time,” Harry said.
Bob Stark got him Cordell’s mother’s address on Lothrop. “Her name’s Gladys Jackson. Divorced Sims, married Melvin Jackson. Divorced him.”
“She gets around, huh?”
“You could say. Cordell’s at Detroit Receiving, where most of the inner-city shooting victims are taken, room 308, still listed as critical, but doing well considering he was shot three times.”
Harry took Woodward to Grand Boulevard, passed the GM Building on his left and Fisher Building on his right, two Detroit landmarks. Drove to 14th Street, went right on Lothrop, found the address, parked and knocked on the door. The house was a mess and so was the woman who lived there. Bags, half-moon shapes under her eyes that were darker than her skin. Looked like she’d been in a prizefight and lost. She was wearing a stained terrycloth robe, and had curlers in her hair. “Mrs. Jackson, I’m Harry Levin.” He took out his driver’s license and handed it to her. She glanced at the photograph, seemed to study his face and gave it back to him.
“’Nother white dude come by here saying he was you. Spoke Southern. Saying he from Chattanooga.”
Harry still had the mug shot of Hess that Taggart had given him. He took out the paper, unfolded it and handed it to her. “Is this the man?”
Her eyes opened wide. “That him,” she said. “Who is he?”
“Could be the one shot Cordell.”
“Why he do that? Shoot my boy three times. Kill the sister was with him.” She gave the mug shot back to him. “He gonna try again?”
Harry drove downtown to Detroit Receiving on St Antoine behind the police station. Parked, went in and took the elevator to the third floor. The hospital was old and overcrowded. Not enough beds so patients on gurneys were lined up in the hall under gloomy fluorescent lights that cast a yellow glow. Nurses and orderlies running around amid the chaos. Harry had never seen anything like it.
He walked around till he found room 308. Expected a cop in uniform to be sitting in a chair in the hallway the way he’d seen in movies. There to protect Cordell in case the assassin returned. He went in. A gray-haired black man was sleeping in the first bed. Cordell was in the second one, IVs in both arms. The machine behind him against the wall was making a whooshing noise. Cordell sensed his presence, glanced at him and grinned.
“The fuck you doin’ here, Harry?”
“Good to see you‚ too. How you feeling?”
“Ever been shot?”
“No,” Harry said. “You see who did it?”
“Shape outside the car is all. Then metal was flying at us through the glass. I’m moving, ducking, tryin’ not to get hit. Five shots. Little sounds like pufft, pufft. Man had his gun silenced. Hit me here.” Pointed to his left forearm. “Here.” Pointing to the upper left side of his chest near the collarbone, a bandage bulging under the hospital gown.
“Rochelle came out to smoke one, got smoked.”
“She your girlfriend?”
“Not any more.” He reached for a plastic cup on the table next to him, picked it up and sucked water through the straw.
“Remember anything about the shooter?”
Cordell closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them looking at Harry. “Wore a hat. Just saw it like a blip, flash in my head.”
“What kind of hat?”
“Little motherfucker with a brim. Had a feather on the side?”
“Sounds Tyrolean.”
“Can see him now,” Cordell said. “Was a white dude.”
Harry showed him the mug shot of Hess.
“Might be,” Cordell said. “The Nazi, huh?”
Harry nodded. “He stopped by your mother’s, told her he was me.”
“Let me ax you something. You the star witness. Why’s he coming after me?” Cordell said.
“He’s tying up loose ends. Taking out anyone knows something about him.”
“Loose ends? Man, I don’t know nothin’. Don’t know shit.”
Harry was wondering if Hess had come to Detroit first. Take care of them and go to Palm Beach? He had to call Joyce again and warn her. He saw Cordell’s right foot come out from under the blanket. His ankle had a leg-iron on it, chained to the side rail. “What’s that? They think you’re going to run out, skip your medication?”
“Warrant for my arrest. Check it out. Charging me with felony firearm. Guess you can relate, huh? And I was just about to leave town.”
“Maybe I can help with your legal problems.”
“How you gonna do that? You a lawyer?”
“I know one and he’s good.”
“Tell him to work fast. Few more days, I heard a nurse sayin’, they gonna move me to the jail infirmary. Wayne County. Trust me, you don’t want to do time in there.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Harry said.
Harry went back to the yard. Galina had called. She was cooking a brisket, and insisted on dropping some off for his dinner.
“Don’t worry, Harry. If door is locked, I know where to find spare key.”
He was going to call Galina and tell her not to bother, but he didn’t want to talk to her, get in a conversation. He was trying to avoid her.