Where the dead lay

THIRTY-FOUR

He had seen the monster in that man’s pig-iron black eyes. He’d seen it and he couldn’t un-see it, and the man was now in his path and Behr would have to deal with that. Behr pounded on Ezra’s door, and when it swung open, he nearly staggered inside. His car was parked cockeyed, still running, in the lot out front.

“You all right, Mr. Behr?” Ezra asked after taking one look at him.

“I didn’t catch the guy,” Behr said, and then sought a place to sit down. Ezra helped him to the plaid sofa, pushing away a pile of newspapers, and Behr told him what had happened.

“You need some Anacin?” Ezra asked.

Behr nodded and the older man went off into a kitchenette and returned with the pills and water and a can of frozen orange juice concentrate, which Behr pressed against the base of his skull. Behr swallowed down the pills and used some water on his fingers to clear the blood from his mouth. Then he turned to Ezra. “I won’t be coming back here again. I’ve got to leave you out of this. But I need to know

… that cop, the lieutenant who came by when you were assaulted. What’d he look like?”

“Well,” Ezra said, scratching his chin, “he was a white guy. Medium height. Forties. Mustache.”

“Ezra, you just described three-quarters of the cops in America.”

“It wasn’t a mustache like yours. It was longer, black, like one of them cowboy ones.”

“A handlebar?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Was he stocky?”

“A bit, yeah.”

“Was his name Bustamante?”

“Could’ve been.”

“Did another cop call him anything?”

“Just ‘Lieutenant.’”

Things were colliding in Behr’s head, and he struggled to keep them straight. When Ezra called, he’d come to follow up on someone only tangentially related to Aurelio’s world, and he’d followed it up, and he’d found a connection, albeit tenuous, he thought, to the pea-shake case, and he’d nearly had his head taken off for his trouble.

“You heard from Flavia Inez lately?” Behr asked. Ezra just shook his head. “Let me ask you something else,” Behr said, “when she left, how’d she get her stuff out of here? Who helped her?”

“A couple of guys.”

“Movers?”

“Not real movers. Some young guys.”

“Big kids? High school age?” Behr asked, getting an idea.

“Could’ve been. Since I got old, I can’t tell age too good. But they weren’t professionals.”

“How are you sure?”

“They didn’t have the matching T-shirts, or a moving truck. Just one of them little jobs from U-Haul. They made two trips.”

Behr leaned back on the couch, processing, and switched the can of frozen juice from his head to his bruised and swollen elbow. He felt like he was back in high school algebra solving a formula and he’d just been given the value of X.

Behr pushed himself to his feet and turned to Ezra. “If that guy comes back, you call me and not the cops. You can’t reach me, you call the Stateys. And you be sure to stay inside.”

“Damn straight,” Ezra said, his eyes serious and afraid as he nodded. “I ain’t gonna end up floating down by the railroad tracks.”

Behr just looked at Ezra and nodded, remembering the first time the man had spoken those words, and how they hadn’t meant much to him then.

Night had come down at the end of a long day, and Terry Cottrell had gotten himself cleaned up and ready to go out and meet some boys down at Brandy’s Show Lounge. He was good and ready to see some fine women do their thing and hear what was happening out in the real world. He’d driven out and had pulled through the gate, stopped, wrapped the chain around the gatepost, and just locked it all up when he saw a pair of headlights bouncing along the long dirt entranceway toward South County Municipal Landfill.

What the hell? he thought, gonna have to tell ’em there’s no dumping after dark. Cottrell squinted at the coming vehicle, trying to read its make in the black night.

There was no other traffic at this time of night, but as he reached the fence circling the dumping area, he saw an old Camaro, its lights on, parked just outside of the fence. Terry Cottrell was behind it, in the midst of padlocking the gates for the night when Behr rolled up, almost bumper to bumper with the other car. When it came to information gathering, Behr found he did better staying friendly with people who knew things, doing favors when he could, and just asking. And when he found someone who knew something and asking didn’t work, he’d start demanding. It wasn’t something he’d had to do to a friend lately, but this was where he found himself and so be it. When he’d finished with the lock, Cottrell came around the front of his car and they stood across from each other in bright glare of the headlights and Behr saw right away that he was not a welcome visitor.

“This time I talk, you listen and nod,” Behr said.

“You got me boxed in here,” Cottrell said, seeing his position between the car and the locked gate.

“Won’t be long. Someone’s been making a run on the pea-shake game city-wide. You knew it when I was here last and it’s what you were trying to tell me with that Trafficante bullshit.”

A nod. Cottrell knew a guy who knew a dude, Marcus, who crushed beats down at a bar that was in the middle of all the shit. This was a good dude, too. Not hard, but smooth. Cottrell had met him a few times and could see Marcus had a talent for navigating social situations. There wasn’t nobody he couldn’t get on with, but even he was rattled and looking to scatter. Word was, he was waiting for the right time to get his gear out of the bar and drift away.

“It’s a family.”

Another nod. Cottrell didn’t know why he was confirming shit for him, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He just wanted Behr gone.

“From up Speedway. A bunch of brothers and a father, and maybe an uncle or some other partner.”

A third nod.

“The Schlegels.”

Cottrell didn’t move. Now they were getting into some ground that was dangerous for him, and he wasn’t about to give up this kind of information. But his eyes must have confirmed it, for Behr continued.

“They’re killing anyone who gets in their way. No one’s talking to the cops, because the Schlegels have the cops.”

This time Cottrell made sure his eyes remained still and cold. There was nothing more he should tell Behr, and nothing more Behr had the right to ask, but Behr couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Did they take out those P.I. s? You hear anything about that?” he asked.

“Man, if they told anyone about it, how the fuck would it be me?” Cottrell said. Since his silence wouldn’t put Behr off, he hoped maybe some angry words would. In all the years he’d known Frank Behr, the guy had never come on all hard-core John Law like this, except that first time when Behr had busted him long ago. But it was like a flashback to that time now. Cottrell felt Behr there with his demand for truth, an immovable object in his path.

“Goddamn it, man, gimme something,” Behr breathed, sick with himself. He knew his actions were crossing someone off a very short list in Cottrell, and he regretted it, but Cottrell’s claim rang like bullshit to him.

“Or what, you gonna put a beat-down on me?” Cottrell spat back. He turned to get to his car, but Behr stepped in his way.

“Is it just the cops? What else is there?” he demanded.

“Fuck you, coming down here asking, get out my grill-”

“No.”

Only the car engines sounded between them for a moment. It sounded like Cottrell’s engine was missing every few seconds. They glared into each other’s eyes.

“A’ight,” Cottrell finally said. “I give you this, you keep it, or else a good dude gets his ass greenlit…” Cottrell flashed on Marcus, full of holes, dumped in a ditch somewhere.

Behr just nodded.

“Way I hear it is they got help from up north.”

“Chicago or Detroit?”

“Don’t know, but peep’s saying they brought in some outta-state boys.”

That was it. Behr had it, and had been right about pushing for it, but still he felt ashamed and put a hand on Cottrell’s shoulder. Cottrell knocked it off.

“Next time we meet, we talk about the Colts or movies or whatever, and that’s it,” Behr said.

“Hope it ain’t soon,” Cottrell responded. Behr understood. The whole thing had rattled his friend, and Cottrell was not someone who rattled easy, and he sure as hell didn’t like it. The night was still for a moment, the only movement the night bugs scrambling between the headlights. Finally Behr turned and moved back toward his car.

“You watch that dome of yours,” Cottrell said quietly. But Behr was already in his car and backing down the dirt track on his way out.