Gray Dawn

17

After breakfast and strategy, it was time for us to execute Niska’s seemingly simple plan. The four of us went to a bus stop a few blocks away from the restaurant Delroy had invited Niska to — Clooney’s Diner.

Taking a deep breath, Niska walked across the street and then down toward the restaurant.

After ten minutes or so, Fearless and Doreen followed me to another bus stop bench that was catty-corner across the street from the eatery. Fearless was elected to go in and scope out the scene. It took him seven long minutes to return.

“Where you been?” I asked him. “I was about to come in after you.”

“The call of nature,” he replied. “You know, when you ask nicely, they usually let you use the facilities.”

“You see ’em?”

“Yeah. You could too, if we go down to the far end of the windah.”

“Time to go,” I said to Niska’s client.

She went.

Fearless and I positioned ourselves in front of Clooney’s, a step away from the plate-glass window that stood as its front wall. We faced each other and pretended to be talking about something intense. That way, Fearless could peer over my shoulder and keep an eye on the target and the girls.

Clooney’s called itself a diner, but really it was an upscale restaurant with tablecloths and everything. The waiters wore dark two-piece suits and white shirts and paid close attention to the diners in their sections.

Ten minutes after Doreen went in, I asked Fearless, “What they doin’?”

“Still talkin’.”

“Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf,” I suggested.

“He looks scared. Wait, he’s gettin’ up, looks like he walkin’ back to the toilet.”

“Let’s go, then.”

We hurried down the utility alley at the side of the office building that housed the restaurant. This is because when Fearless had pretended to go to the toilet, he checked for a back door that Delroy might use.

D.M. was coming out of that door just as we arrived.

The alleged professional con man had a slight build and stood about five ten. His beard was a sparse and stringy black thing, but the hair on his head was lustrous and thick. He wore gold-colored trousers and a gold sweater over a dark blue dress shirt.

He was trying to move past us when Fearless placed a splayed hand against his chest.

“What? What? What?” Delroy asked.

“Where you goin’, Del?” I asked, my demeanor sentry-like and stiff.

“Who are you guys?” His eyes were wide as saucers.

“Brothers,” I said. “Niska’s brothers.”

Upon hearing this, Delroy visibly relaxed.

“I gotta get outta here,” he said.

“Did you pay Doreen back the money you stole?”

“I didn’t — I didn’t steal any money.”

I could see why women might like the man calling himself Magi. His face, under that travesty of a beard, would have been attractive on a man or woman.

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe you didn’t. Maybe she’s lying. But I’m gonna have to talk to you both, face-to-face, before I know for sure.”

“No,” he contradicted. “I have to go.”

That’s when Fearless socked him on the jaw. Considering Fearless’s strength, the blow was no more than a tap. But Delroy slammed against the wall and then slid down onto his butt.

“Keep him here,” I said to my friend. Then I retraced my steps all the way back to Clooney’s front door.

“Can I help you, sir?” the maître d’, a small man in a very dapper straw-colored suit, inquired.

I glanced at the table where Doreen and Niska sat.

“That’s my party there.”

“The reservation was for two.”

“Then why are there three drinks on the table?”

By that time Niska had seen me. She and Doreen came over to the maître d’s podium.

“Excuse me,” the straw man said to the ladies. “Have you paid your bill?”

“Here you go,” I said handing the dandy man a twenty-dollar bill. “Come on, girls, we got to go.”

At the back door again, Delroy was on his feet. The flesh under his left cheekbone had swollen considerably.

“Oh, baby, what did they do to you?” Doreen cried, rushing to him, bringing up her hands to cup his jaw.

They?

“He wasn’t cooperating,” I told the co-ed.

“You didn’t have to hurt him.”

“Hurt him? We probably saved his butt.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Delroy here is not worried about you or your money. He’s on the run from somebody else. Somebody that won’t worry about him bruising or bleeding or stopping breathing altogether.”

“What’s he talking about, baby?” Doreen asked the man of many names.

Delroy looked at me and asked, “Manny send you?”

“Who’s Manny?” Doreen asked.

“The boogeyman,” I supplied.

Back at my office, the five of us sat around the conference table installed there.

“Okay,” I said to Delroy. “Tell us the story.”

The womanizer’s eyes were pleading for the world to fall off its axis and lose him in disaster.

“I don’t want to talk about it in front of her,” he strategized.

Sitting by his side, Doreen put her hand on his shoulder.

As she witnessed this extraordinary response, the truth slowly dawned on Niska’s face.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Doreen stated.

“No,” I said. “You are not. None of us are. Del here is gonna tell us why he’s running and then we’re gonna make some decisions.”

“I’m not sayin’ anything,” the temporary prisoner claimed.

“Oh yes you are, because if you don’t, I’m going to have Clemmie out there call the cops. She’s gonna tell them that we have a man accused of multiple felonies under citizen’s arrest at WRENS-L Detective Agency.”

I’m quite sure that the con man would have preferred three minutes of the full fury of Fearless’s fists to being put in a cage, one where some guy named Manny had access to many eyes and ears.

“I don’t want you to do that,” his maybe-ex-girlfriend challenged.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, dismissing her wants.

“I’m the one paying you.”

“True. But the cops want lover boy here for many more crimes than just takin’ your little money.”

“I want you to let him go,” Doreen said, her words soft, like fire.

“You got my detective here involved in some shit, and I’m gonna scrape it off.”

Delroy and Doreen were defeated.

“Um,” he said. “I mean, uh, how can I be sure you don’t tell somebody?”

“You can be sure I will tell, if you lie,” I said, managing to get in a note of finality on the last syllable.

Delroy received that note.

“What you wanna know?” he asked.

“Who is Manny?”

“He’s a... he’s a crook.”

“Like you?”

“That’s not fair,” Doreen complained.

“He’s like a, you know, a gangster, like,” Delroy admitted.

“And what’s his beef with you?”

“I knew this girl who works at a downtown branch of the Bank of America, and she — and she told me about this guy named Feder who would come in on the third Friday of every month and make a withdrawal without filling out a withdrawal slip.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Always more than fifteen and less than twenty thousand.”

“Dollars?” Niska said out loud.

“So, what did you do to Mr. Feder?” I asked.

“I followed him for two weeks, scoped it out. He was this old guy who always walked the same way after getting the money. He always went to this park and walked between two bungalows where there wasn’t too many people.”

“So, you and your girlfriend were in on it together,” I concluded.

“No. She told me about it because she was worried that she was doin’ somethin’ illegal. I told her that I was gonna follow the guy and see what he did.”

“She didn’t know?” Doreen asked. “What kind of heifer doesn’t know when she’s stealing?”

“Because of the bank manager, honey. He told her that it was bank business. He made her a senior teller. That was before I met you, baby.”

I interrupted the tender scene, saying, “Let’s get back to the bungalows, Del.”

“On the third Friday I didn’t follow him. I went to wait behind one’a the bungalows, and when he walked by, I hit him in the head with a security baton and took his briefcase ’cause he always put the money there.”

“You stole it?” Maybe Doreen was seeing the light.

“Yeah.”

“And what about the bank teller?” I asked.

“What about her?”

“Did she know what you did?”

“She prob’ly figured it out.”

“Probably?” Doreen hissed.

“I didn’t talk to her again.”

“Because,” Fearless Jones intoned, “that guy, that Manny, would have gotten to her by five o’clock.”

“Manny kill her?” I asked.

“I was worried that he did,” Delroy whispered. “I called her phone a week later and when she answered, I hung up.”

“But Manny got your name from somebody,” I surmised. “Whatever name it was that you were using. He kept asking around, tellin’ people what you looked like and what names you used. It took him a while, but finally he caught on to the name Martin Durer. Somebody, some girl I bet, told Manny’s people where they could find you. But your antennae were up and you bolted with Doreen’s grandparents’ ninety-two hundred dollars.”

Delroy turned to Doreen then.

“Listen, D,” he said. “It’s true. The only reason I ran away from you was that some guys had been lookin’ for me at the rooming house I was staying in. I had to run... to protect you.”

She took his hand.

The shock on Niska’s face was proof that she was learning an important lesson.

Delroy looked into each face around the table, ending with me.

“So, what are you gonna do?” he asked me.

I took my time, pondering a thief’s fate.

“You can’t turn him in,” Doreen said. “I’m paying for this... this investigation. Now it’s over. It’s done.”

Ignoring Doreen, I said, “You ask me what I’m gonna do, Delroy?”

“Yeah.”

“Nuthin’.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t wanna get involved in your business or Manny’s.”

“You want me to pay your fee?”

“No. I want you to leave.” I turned to Doreen and asked, “Now, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Either you dodge a bullet, or you take the next step down.”

She gazed at me, examining my words as if they were on a contract presented by the devil himself.

“Come on, sugar,” she said to the man temporarily named Delroy. “My car’s downstairs.”

Minutes later, Fearless, Niska, and I were still seated at the table.

“I don’t understand what happened,” Niska said. “Did... did she hire me because she wanted to get back with him?”

“Probably not,” I told her. “I’m sure she thought that she wanted her money back. Maybe she dreamed of turning him in to the police. But, you know, love’s a powerful drug. Once she saw him, that was it.”

Fearless leaned back in his chair and looked up to the ceiling.

“Why didn’t you take the money?” Niska asked.

“Because that would have involved you in an aspect of the case that you’re not ready for and that I don’t have the time to take on.”

Niska bit her lower lip and then smiled.

“That was fun,” she said.

“Go on home, honey,” I advised. “Take a few days off and think about all this. Clemmie’s mama’s out of a job, so she needs a few days’ salary.”