Par Four, page 27
part #2 of Jake Hines Series
“Aw, shit, Frank, truckloads! It’s her stash of all the best things that have been stolen in Rutherford and the surrounding towns for the last two or three years. We found Millicent Porter’s spoons, can you beat that? And her punch bowl and cups–all that stuff she’s been calling me about every week since last May. I had Kevin take the stuff back to her; I figured we had plenty without it. Do you know what she said to him? She said, ‘I knew if somebody who really cared would take my case he could find my things.’ ”
Frank loved it. He leaned back in his big chair and enjoyed his first good belly-laugh in weeks. “Isn’t it just perfect?” he said, wiping his eyes. Eventually he quieted down and asked, “I still don’t quite see what Doris was saving all that stuff for.”
“Doris is like the poster girl for the maxim that there’s no free lunch. She’s so proud of herself for never getting hooked on crack; she keeps saying, ‘That’s for losers,’ and ‘They’re just weaklings.’ But she started looking at the beautiful things that users brought in to fence, and she couldn’t let them go. That’s what she got hooked on, the treasure, the loot. She set up this cutout system with Mr. Sewage–”
“Now that can’t be his real name, is it?”
“Sorry. Sewell. His nickname is Mr. Sewage and he looks the part. Doris had him call her whenever he took in something good. If she was interested, he delivered it to Clover Avenue. If she wanted it, she kept it and paid whatever he’d paid for it. If she decided against it he came the next day and took it back. She has a mansion so full of treasures you can hardly move around. Sewell’s been laundering money for her, too.”
“Come on, there can’t be that much crack trade going on in Rutherford.”
“Well, there’s more than we thought, but Doris was funneling much more cash through here than just what was generated in town. She’s really been a good soldier for those guys. Besides Babe and Mr. Sewell, she had the adult bookstore taking some of it, the massage and hydrotherapy shop on Second Street Southeast, and one of the quick-stop gas stations. We might find one or two more places before we’re done.”
“And she got a percentage of all of it?”
“She got some and they got some. Plenty for all. But bigger than that was the profit on all the substandard housing she eventually owned. One of her corporations owns the crack house, did I tell you that? Apartment houses and stores all over the North End. Doris could well afford to have Ed run for Governor.”
“Huh. Guess he can forget that now.”
“And maybe his present job too. Though he hasn’t committed any crime…but I don’t think he cares about his job right now. He looks…broken.”
Frank sighed profoundly and said, “Shit.” He brooded a minute, then roused himself and smiled at me. “I must say I’m impressed,” he said, “by how fast you got all this information out of her. How’d you get her to open up?”
I laughed out loud. It felt as good to my cheeks as a cool breeze. “I couldn’t get her to stop talking,” I said.
“But I mean, all you really had on her in the beginning was her presence in that house. Didn’t she even try to make up an excuse?”
“On the contrary. From the minute Doris looked up and saw us there, it was like she’d found the audience of her dreams.”
“Huh. What, she felt so guilty?”
“Guilty? Hell, no, Frank, Doris was proud! She’d been waiting for years to explain to somebody how clever she was. She set up this fabulous system for making money, and arranged to buy that elegant house and furnish it with shit so cheap it was almost free, but the catch to this sweet deal was she didn’t have anybody to share it with. There weren’t any bragging rights! So she was dying to tell.”
“But I thought you said she collapsed when she first saw you.”
“Oh, she was still jumpy about the drug lords in the Cities, so when Bo and I stepped out to the top of the stairs she thought they’d found her secret hideaway and were gonna kill her in it. Soon as she saw it was me, she put on her boasting cap and began telling me how much money she made off this bunch of dorks. She said to me at one point, ‘We’re just recycling misfits, Jake, that’s all it is. You pick them up and Ed puts them away for a while, and when the system spits them out again I find a way to use them over.”
“Mercy,” Frank said. Lulu opened his door and gave him one of her stern looks. He looked up and said, “In a minute,” and she closed the door hard. “How are you doing with the mop-up from all of this? You need some extra help?”
“I will. Extra clerical help, anyway, by tomorrow. Mary can’t handle all these transcriptions and probable cause applications. My whole crew’s spending today in the jailhouse, downloading tales of nefarious deeds from Mr. Sewell and the bookstore boys. And Bad Boy’s dictating a regular book over there. Now that it’s clear his big-city lawyers aren’t coming to his rescue, he realizes he got stuck with this kidnapping, and he’s telling us everything he can remember. One little nugget I can’t wait any longer to tell you: it was Bad Boy who made the nine-one-one call that got Pinky Predmore nailed for selling marijuana in the school parking lot.”
“Bad Boy did that? Why?”
“Just clearing some of the miscellaneous competition out of the way before he set up himself. He said, ‘Little two-bit operators like that, they’re just trouble for everybody. Better to get ‘em off the street.’ Isn’t that cute?”
“Adorable. How about the two lads that started all this round of confessing; you getting them wrapped up tight?”
“Yes. Scott and Farah are cooperating totally. Scott’s dad got him a lawyer, and Farah’s being represented by the public defender’s office. It’s Scott’s first offense…”
“Some offense though, huh? Heaving his best buddy into the river to drown?”
“With a gun on him, though, don’t forget. I’ve told his father I’ll testify that he helped me make the case.”
“To save his own neck though, wasn’t it?”
“Sure. He’s basically a dumb greedy kid who’s unluckily over eighteen. I think we ought to recommend St. Cloud. Still no picknic, but at least they’re all young.”
“Yeah. I’ll put in with that. What about the African kid?”
“Not so easy for Farah. He’s not a citizen yet. Lotta people at the church are doing all they can to help him, but he’s nineteen. He’s likely to get deported. Be tough on his little brother.”
“That wormy-looking little runt that was following Ray around all day? What’s with that kid? Everybody in the support staff seems to want to adopt him. Greg LaMotte claims he’s never seen anything like him on the computers, a real hacker he said.”
“I have no doubt. He’s a tricky kid with great potential. Fourteen going on fifty. He’s helping us get most of the money and loot back where it belongs. He even knows where most of the liquor from Tom’s store went. Some of it’s in Rowdy’s Bar, by the way. Randy robbed his mother in small ways as well as large. After they heisted the liquor store he volunteered to fetch the liquor order for his mom, took her money, and filled the order from the free stock they had stashed in Bad Boy’s room.”
“Shee. This Ali’s had himself a great set of role models, huh? Is he totally ruined, you think?”
“I’d say it’s anybody’s guess. I asked him today, ‘Ali, what does your family want?’ He said, ‘My mother wants to keep us all safe. My father wants to go back to Africa and herd camels. My brother wants to be a drug lord.’ I said, ‘Well, what about you?’ and he said, ‘I want to go to MIT. You think I can do that?’ and I said, ‘Sure, if you really want it you can get it.’ He laughed, not very pleasantly, and said, ‘Well, I suppose I’ve got as good a chance as anybody else in the family.’ ”
“Huh. What school’s he in? Hafta talk to his principal, see if he might get into some accelerated classes.”
“You can try. Remember I said he was tricky.”
“I think I can accept that,” he said. “I’ve got a son who wrote the book.”
“What, it’s not going so well with Kevin these days?”
Frank shook his head dolefully. “My ambitions as a parent get a little more modest all the time. Lately I’m just hoping to raise my son to college age without breaking his face.” He tortured his chair a few seconds and asked me, “What about all those ideas you and Bo had for bigger fish?”
“Not netting any so far. Bo’s working his networks, talking all the time to agents up and down the river, but he hasn’t found Eugene Soames or his bosses. The drug business in the Twin Cities is suddenly very quiet, we’re told. That won’t last long; they’re just reshuffling personnel. But we might enjoy a little vacation here in Rutherford.”
“Well, Bo should be pleased we accomplished that much.”
“Bo won’t be pleased till crack is off the planet. He’s a helluva cop, Frank. Can I get him some family leave time when his wife gets home?”
“Absolutely. And you better knock off early today and get some sleep.”
“Thank you. I believe I will.”
And I really meant to do it. I was going to get my loaner car out of the parking garage, buy some Chinese takeout at Wong’s, get a six-pack, watch the early evening news and try for twelve hours in the sack. But I had been working so long that just being out on the street with a little free time made me giddy. I decided to drive around a while and chill out. Hard to do since the bank thermometer said eight-seven degrees, and the air-conditioner in the old Dodge made more noise than cold air. But the radio worked. I rolled down the windows, dialed KQRS, got Pearl Jam playing “In My Tree,” turned the volume to just below ‘self-destruct,’ and drove toward the highway with the reverb tickling the soles of my feet.
When I got halfway to St. Paul I allowed myself to suspect that perhaps I was headed for Trudy’s apartment. I could only think about it obliquely, since I had never appeared at her door without a firm date, and had less standing to do so now than ever. I tried asking, “What’s the worst that could happen?” but most of the answers to that were unbearable, so I counted backwards from five thousand by ones, clinging to the wheel like a fruit bat, till I parked at the curb in front of her door.
She opened the door and stared at me openmouthed. “Jake,” she said, and then, “Oh, my God, I’m so glad to see you,” and she flew into my arms.
The next couple of minutes were very confusing. We both talked at once, very fast and loud, but interrupted each other with a lot of kissing and hugging.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” she said.
“Please don’t move to California,” I said.
“I should never have let you leave in that storm,” she said.
“I’ll stay away from you,” I said. “You won’t have to see me at all.” That may not have sounded entirely sincere, since by then we were wrapped tightly around each other and our bodies showed no disposition to disengage. In fact the more we explained ourselves the less we seemed to be wearing, until we had eased down the hall in a trail of cast-off garments and reached her bedroom. There, heedless of the welfare of her great-aunt Carrie’s hundred-year-old handmade quilt, we sank together onto her sweet-smelling bed.
Love was kind to us that day. United in the country of our heart’s desire, we whispered the language only lovers know, said, Oh,” and, “Yes,” and, “Sweet, sweet,” and understood each other perfectly. We touched and kissed each other in all the secret places of our bodies, until we tingled with delight. When the great wave of our pleasure lifted us, we rode it bravely to the crest, and cried out together from the heights. In the blissful silence that followed, we held each other in wordless trust and awe, until we slept.
We woke around nine o’clock, starving. “I’ve got some more bacon and eggs,” Trudy said. “Will that do?”
“Perfect,” I said. “Can I make a lot of toast?”
“With cinnamon bread,” she said, “and I’ve got some white Zin, you want a glass?” We cooked together in ravenous haste, bumping into each other and giggling, and ate double portions of everything. Sitting over the warm, soothing food in post-coital companionship, we drifted into a conversation about the week just past. I told her about finding crack in my golf bag, and getting called in the middle of the night to hear Scott Rouse’s teary confession, and trailing Mr. Sewage to the astonishing finds on Clover Avenue.
I stopped once and said, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry to talk about work. I’m just so full of it right now…” and she shrugged and said, “Why did we ever make that rule? Actually I love to hear more about the cases we work on.” So we sat late over the messy table, got up and washed the dishes, poured more wine, and sat down to talk again. Somehow, around midnight, I found myself telling her about getting my start in life in a dumpster. I described the pot-smoking janitor who found me, and the motel clerk who wiped the coffee grounds out of my eyes and called Health and Human Services.
“Who told you all this?” Trudy asked.
“A social worker I hated.”
“Why did you hate her? What did she do to you?”
“Took me away from the best foster mother I ever had.”
“Why?”
“My foster father got sent up for bad checks and my case worker felt the environment in their house was unsuitable. I didn’t care about him, but Maxine was good to me and I didn’t want to leave her, so I swore at my case worker. She decided it was time I knew how much Minnesota had done for me.”
“What a pig,” Trudy said. I looked at her, startled, and she said, “Not you. Her.”
“Yes. Well, actually, I came to realize she wasn’t entirely wrong about everything, and I am grateful to Minnesota now. It’s better than a lot of places, for orphans. But I was nine at the time, and the merits of state supervision didn’t grab me.” Something stirred in my memory. I sat staring into my wine glass, letting it come back.
“You want some more?” she asked.
“No. I just remembered. That’s when I first saw the wolf.” I told her about the fierce animal that had stalked my dreams again this week. I had never described him to anyone before, figuring he made me seem crazy. But to my surprise Trudy was impressed.
“Wow,” she said, “a harbinger. Is he pretty reliable?”
“Very.” I shivered. “I don’t want to sound like a mystic. The wolf is probably the sum of a lot of peripheral messages that I try to ignore at the time. When the threat gets real enough he shows up and says, ‘Heads up, asshole.’
“Even so,” she said, “what a convenience.”
So, magically, in Trudy’s hands, the ghoulish ghost I had kept hidden as a shameful secret was transformed into a handy hazard alert, like a smoke alarm. I stretched, luxuriating in my newfound respectability.
“Wanna stay over?” Trudy said. “It’s pretty late to drive home.”
“Could I, please? I’ll have to leave early but I’ll try not to wake you.” I broke that promise, at five in the morning, with a sudden desire for her so urgent that my response to it woke the neighbor’s dog. A few minutes later, I turned in the doorway and said, “Can I come back tonight?”
She put her head on one side and looked as if she might be going to ask where we were going with this, but then she just smiled and said, “Sure. What would you like for dinner?” The tiny anxious moment made me realize, though, that the time had come for plain dealing. All day long, while I helped a traumatized Milo Nilssen prepare the probable-cause papers with which to accompany his boss’s wife before the judge, I got ready to plead my other case, with Trudy Hanson.
In the end she made it easy for me by dropping the spaghetti. She was tasting it for doneness every few seconds, while I dished up the salad, and when she said, “There, it’s done!” she put on padded mitts, picked up the hot pan and poured the cooked pasta into a big colander in the sink. She set the pan on the drain board, gave the colander a shake, and turned to pour the pasta back in the pan. Somehow one handle slipped out of her grasp, and the whole slippery steaming mess came pouring out onto the floor and her feet.
She screamed in pain and shock. I ran to the edge of the steaming lake of spaghetti, reached across it and lifted her out. Wiggling strands of hot pasta slithered off her feet as I carried her down the hall by her armpits and thrust her into the tub. When I turned on the cold water she yelled louder for a minute and then stopped and sat down on the side of the tub. I unlaced her sneakers and slid them gently off.
“I better do my own socks,” she said. She got out of them without another squeak and sat surveying the damage. “Actually, not too bad,” she said, watching the angry red streaks fade.
“If you can walk to the car I’ll take you to the emergency room.”
“I’ve got some burn cream,” she said. “Let’s try that first.” She spread some gooey aloe stuff on herself and declared the pain was almost gone.
“I’m fine now,” she said, “and I want to clean up that spaghetti before it gets really stuck to everything.”
“You’re going to supervise,” I said. “I’m going to mop up. Sit here. Put your feet up on this stool. Drink this glass of water. Point and tell and I’ll do as you say.”
Cooked spaghetti is not easy. There are many small pieces. Each is undecided whether to turn into thick glue or a floppy rock. Every one is determined to stick to brooms, dustpans, sponges, mops, hands, knees, hair, and the underside of a cleaning bucket. By the time I had retrieved and discarded all the stray pieces of cooked spaghetti we had spread around Trudy’s apartment, I had lower back pain and a muscle spasm in my left thigh. None of that mattered at all because I saw that Trudy was pleased.
“Come and sit by me,” she said. Smiling, she put her arms around me. “You’re very handy to have around in a crisis, aren’t you?”
“Keep me,” I said. “I’ll get better with time. My ambition is to be the perfect mate for you, do you know that? If you keep me and train me I can make you very happy, you’ll see; I’ll keep working at it till I do. I have a strange face and I don’t know who I really am but you can get used to that, can’t you? Please don’t go to California; stay here and let me love you.”
