Private Eye Four-Pack, page 78
Cooper made a point of keeping hard eye contact with her until Ronnie looked away. He was furious and yet he knew he really didn’t want her to leave him. “Look,” he said with a gentler voice, “it’s going to be all right. I’ll have a talk with them when I get down to the office. You just shouldn’t keep riding me like that.”
Then he nodded and walked out of the condo without trying to touch her again. Anger and fear boiled inside Ronnie, forming a noxious burn in her stomach. I was nothing before I met you? She thought about leaving him, but that was so dramatic and final, not to mention fiscally unsound. First things first. Get those two “investigators” out of the picture. For good. She glanced at the phone, and the thought that had been percolating since she first heard the news about McLean suddenly erupted. She finished her coffee and had four more cigarettes—then she did the deed.
Her hands shook as she dialed the police number she had memorized the night before. It being Sunday, she had a little trouble getting through to the right department. Finally the right officer answered.
“Detective Lesley, may I help you?” The question came quickly through the line, and Ronnie almost hung up. The voice sounded so young.
“Are you working on the McLean case? The beating that I saw on the news last night?”
“Yes ma’am. Sergeant Haney is in charge, but he’s not in today. Do you have any information regarding the attack?”
“You bet I do.” She rolled her eyes at how loud her voice was.
“May I have your name, ma’am?”
“No, junior. I’ll just tell you what I know and I’ll tell you once. Try to get it all down. The same two men who did that Dopps guy up in Commerce City, the knife job, did McLean. I’d check out a couple of guys in Aurora. One of them’s named Soyko. I think his first name is Leo. The other one is Jacky Romp. They live just east of Havana, near Iliff. They’re the ones you’re after. They’ll give you a ton of crap, but be careful. They’re trouble. And nobody asked them to do it. They did it on their own.”
“Ma’am, how do you know this?” Lesley’s words were coming quickly. “If I could just have your name and phone number.”
“I told you, no, sonny boy. Look, just nail those guys. If you don’t get them now, there’ll be more trouble.”
With that she slammed down the receiver. Seconds later, she lit a cigarette and tried to remember exactly what she had just told Lesley. Her thoughts were clouded with fright. Soyko and Romp at her house. All anger had left her during the call, and it was replaced with fear.
Sergeant Haney had seen the look a thousand times. The same just-try-me sneer he got from damned near every dime-store hard-on he ever met. But this sneer wasn’t forced or shaky like some of them. It was no pose. Haney could tell this guy meant what was carved on his face. His eyes gave up nothing and he smelled like he never showered. Contaminated. And Haney knew he had nothing on Soyko and his buddy, but he just wanted to shake the tree, see if anything fell out. That phone call to Lesley the day before was all he had to go on in McLean’s case.
Soyko kept thinking how he could probably slap the hell out of this flabby old man before he could get his gun out. The guy looked like he could have been tough once, but that was about a hundred years ago, when he was young. Still, Soyko had never moved on a cop before, and he knew it would be a mistake. He also thought how Haney had squat to go on except for this one lame tip. He looked over and saw Jacky on the couch, twitching in rage and glaring at the detective.
“You two can have a lawyer if you want one,” Haney said. “Course, then we all go downtown and make a big deal over this.”
“I suppose we could just do that, but it don’t matter,” Soyko shot back. “We ain’t talking to you about nothing, anyhow. Downtown, here. Don’t matter. What’s all this about? You come here talking about a guy dying up in Commerce City and some other guy getting beat up. We don’t know squat. Last Friday, we were both over to the Drift Inn playing pool. All night. We can probably only get about twenty guys to back us up.”
“I bet they’re fine citizens, too.” Haney was getting mad. “What about the afternoon of June fourth? I suppose you could get another twenty guys to back you up on that one?”
“That’s guaranteed, pal. Look, I got no idea what you’re talking about. Get my lawyer? Man, I work for lawyers. Jacky and me are private investigators. Like on the television.”
Haney took in a deep breath and crushed out his cigarette. He thought how he’d like to kick some respect into this mouthy little punk. For twenty-seven years he’d been listening to all kinds of trash. White trash, black trash, brown trash. Whatever the color, trash was just trash. He had no idea who called with their names, but he was believing it more.
“What lawyers?”
“That’s confidential.” Soyko leaned back against the dining-room table, smiling. He didn’t know if it was confidential or not, but he had heard it on enough lawyer shows and movies to use it.
Lesley had told Haney that the woman said something like no one ordered these two guys to do it either time. He said she sounded nervous about that part. Lesley didn’t get a chance to ask her exactly what she meant.
“Could be it was one of your lawyers got you into this.” He took a flyer. “The lady tells us you were on your own, but I’m not so sure.”
Soyko felt his face flush for just an instant. “Unless you want us downtown, I don’t have to say a word.” Forty-five minutes is enough with this clown.
“Take it easy, slick.” Haney leaned forward, obviously furious. His face looked soft, puffy from overuse, but even Soyko backed up a shade. Haney realized he had hit a nerve. “We’ve got some more checking to do on both you pukes. Maybe you might want to make sure you can get those twenty guys for the afternoon of the fourth and for Friday night. I’ll be seeing you again. You can fucking bank on it.”
When he left, Jacky got up and kicked the side of the sofa with a frightening amount of force for a thin man. “Son of a bitch,” he screamed at Soyko. “Who did it?” His face was the color of blood.
“Got a pretty good idea. For one thing, he said it was a broad.”
“How you know that wasn’t a lot of crap?”
“Because that cop ain’t ambitious enough to do no homework. Someone called on us or he would never have been here. If they had anything, they’d be building it into a case right now. To them, this is just an assault that’ll blow over and a homicide out of their backyard. They were just squeezing our nuts to see if we’d fold.”
Soyko was pulling his fingers individually, deliberately cracking each knuckle as he spoke. “When Cooper ordered this thing with McLean, he told us not to let it get back to Ronnie. Then yesterday, when he called, he told us how pissed she was. My bet is, he fed her some shit like it was all our doing. Not that I care. And she would tell the cops that it’s our idea. Try and cover for her fat-ass boyfriend. My thinking is, she just got so mad she called the cops sometime yesterday or first thing this morning. Only two people know about us, and there’s no way Cooper made that call. If it was him, he’d cut a deal, roll on us, and the first time we see the cops they’d have a warrant.”
“That miserable little bitch,” Jacky fumed, his jaws not moving.
“We gotta deal with this,” Soyko said. “With both of them. And we gotta do it quick and hard. No fucking doubt about that.”
EIGHTEEN
Ronnie listened to the phone ring at the other end of the line. She had been trying to reach Cooper for well over an hour. He’d left work early that afternoon, and she needed to talk to him. Desperately. Her head pounded from nicotine and nervous fear as she paced her apartment. That call to the cops the day before was, in her own words, “making me mental.” The more she thought about it, the more she realized that if they talked to Soyko he’d quickly figure out she dropped the dime on him. She tried to convince herself the police wouldn’t move on him and Romp unless they had more evidence to go on. But how could she know that for sure?
She reached for her purse, containing her cigarettes, and glanced at the clock again. Almost seven. Cooper had to be getting home soon. She fumbled around inside the huge bag for a couple of minutes, looking for the pack. “Enough damned junk to fill a suitcase,” she said furiously to no one. Inside there was the petite, off-white cellular phone that Cooper had given her for her birthday and an empty box of M&M’s. There were nine half-full bottles of nail polish, along with her entire linty candy collection and an assortment of makeup far too extensive to itemize. There was her key chain, complete with attached hot-pepper spray designed to ward off dogs, and several checkbooks. There was a separate key chain for her personal safe-deposit box and a small coupon book. Finally, she found her pack and noticed that she had only one Marlboro left. She stuck the cigarette into her mouth angrily and lit it. Ronnie had a habit of turning fear or anxiety or sadness into anger. It never seemed to hurt as much. At that moment she’d rather be furious than feel the terror inside her.
“Screw it,” she mumbled to herself and slipped her shoulder into the long strap from the black leather purse. If she had to sit around to wait for Cooper she’d jump out of her skin. Might as well go get some more smokes from the closest 7-Eleven. She figured he’d have to be home by the time she returned.
As she walked down the hall leading to the outer door, she felt more aggravation. Someone had parked in her usual spot that night, and the entire lot to the east was full. She’d had to park on the street that ran along the side of the building and past the lot. Definitely not my night, she noted.
When she got outside, she was surprised at how bright the sun still was. She put on her pink-rimmed sunglasses—“my hooker shades”—and took a couple steps toward her car, some fifty yards away. That was when she saw Jacky Romp get out of the driver’s side of his El Camino. She looked farther and saw Leo Soyko get out of the passenger’s side. They had parked the big vehicle between her usual lot and where her car was now parked in the street. Ronnie was absolutely amazed that her first thought was how nice Romp’s car looked. Must be a new wax job: Just how the hell does my mind work? Her second thought was that she was thoroughly screwed. No chance to get to her car without them seeing her. And they’d be coming her way any second.
“Which one’s hers?” Jacky asked his friend as they looked over the long white two-story apartment building.
Soyko lifted his arm and pointed to his left. “Over there. Sort of a basement apartment. Total shithole. I think that’s her car on the street there. The maroon Tercel. Betcha Numb Nuts leased it for her. Spoiled bitch. Let’s go get her, Jacky. She’s done enough damage.”
Ronnie saw Soyko point toward her building just before she ducked back into the hallway. She knew if they got her inside she’d be dead. Or wish she was. Instinctively, her right hand shot down into her purse and she grabbed the keys with the pepper spray. Lot of good that’ll do, she thought as she fought back the panic. She glanced out the window and saw the two men walking slowly toward her. There was no other way out of the building, and she didn’t have time to get to her apartment, way at the other end of the hall. She froze with fear and got ready to scream.
At that exact moment, the door to the nearest apartment swung open and three large men walked out. Two looked Hispanic, the third nondescript. Ronnie smelled a sticky blast of pot smoke trailing them into the hallway. She’d seen two of them before, and one, the shortest but stockiest, had flirted with her in the laundry once. They all were in their early twenties and dressed in Target grunge clothes. They smiled hazily at her.
“Hey, man. It’s the blondie,” the stocky flirter said. His voice was enthusiastic but syrupy, like he just woke up. Bad-ass pot voice. “Hey, blondie, man. How you doing, baby? You want to come in and party big-time? Party with Hector maybe?” His eyes got dreamy as he spoke but he definitely wasn’t joking. His friends awkwardly nodded approval and flashed their stoned, shit-eating grins.
Hector wasn’t much taller than Ronnie, but his arms looked thick as logs and his neck was the approximate size of his shoulders. She guessed his weight at well over two hundred pounds. His two friends were thinner and each was almost a foot taller. She instantly knew what she had to do.
“That sounds hot, Hector,” she said in a breathy voice usually reserved for Cooper when she wanted something—a voice so laced with promise the lawyer never could turn it down. Her shorts were small and tight, and most of both smooth cheeks of her butt were exposed. The pink halter top added nicely to the effect. “Very hot. I’ve been wanting to do that ever since we talked that day.”
“All right, man! Amigos!” Hector couldn’t believe his good fortune. His friends shuffled their feet aimlessly and grunted. “Come inside, baby, for a little bong action. What you say?”
Ronnie took a step toward Hector, placed her left hand on his shoulder, and shot him a look that would stiffen a priest. They were eyeball to eyeball, and her words came out in a husky whisper. “One problem, big guy. My old boyfriend, the fucker that used to beat me silly, him and his buddy are right outside. He’s pissed because I dumped him. If they get their hands on me, I’m history. Can you boys make them go away? Then we can party our asses off. Can you get rid of them?”
The large man on Hector’s left fielded that one. “They beat you, little lady? That’s pure horseshit.” He sounded much more cowboy than Hispanic. “We’re gonna tear both them bastards new assholes. You just watch this.”
Hector nodded, his face twisted in concern. “We see who beats who now, baby. You let Hector take care of their shit.” He pulled Ronnie around behind him so she was facing the doorway with the three heroes between her and the world outside.
The door swept open a second later and Jacky Romp and Leo Soyko strolled into the hall. The confidence on their faces waffled when they saw the three men waiting for them. They stopped about five feet from the men, and Soyko looked past them to Ronnie. “Hey, Goldilocks. You got bodyguards now?”
“Damned straight she does,” the cowboy-sounding guy said as he glared down at the two. “Maybe you two shit buckets want to see how tough you are with men instead of girls. Maybe you come to the right place.”
“Damnit,” Jacky sputtered in rage. “You stupid cracker fucks don’t know what you’re doing. Just move on and you don’t get hurt.”
Hector took a step forward so he was a couple feet away from Soyko. “She stays and you go. Now. We not shittin’ around here, man.”
End of discussion, Soyko reasoned. His right fist snapped up and shot into Hector’s mouth before anyone else could move. It wasn’t a full punch, but that was usually more than enough to put someone down. Hector was stunned and he staggered back two steps. But he didn’t come close to falling. Soyko knew they were in for a fight. The big cowboy rushed Jacky and threw him against the wall. Jacky screamed and started throwing punches, but he was clearly no match for the big man. The guy on Hector’s right then rushed Soyko, and they both fell to the ground clawing each other. By this time Hector had recovered, and he jumped on top of Soyko.
Ronnie wasted no time. She slid along the wall closest to the door, past the fighting bodies, and grabbed the door handle. Then she looked back for just a second. Neither Soyko nor Romp noticed. She opened the door and was in a full run toward her car before she realized that in the excitement she’d squeezed her pepper spray down her leg. She figured the fight would last long enough for her to get to her car and drive at least a few miles. It didn’t matter to her which side won. None of the five men would ever see her again.
NINETEEN
“A lot of this crap seems to be coming back your way, Mr. Cooper.” Sergeant Haney’s voice was low and smoldering.
The lawyer looked up but didn’t actually see the sergeant. He couldn’t stop worrying about Ronnie, not to mention himself. She’d called him late last night and wouldn’t say where she was staying. She was screaming with rage and crying from fear at the same time. Ronnie was mad because he had gotten them involved with Leo Soyko, and because Cooper hadn’t been home for her call earlier in the night. Afraid, obviously, because the two hit men were still on the loose and still looking for her. Ronnie said she was “just outside of town” and she’d call him back this morning so they could make plans for getting together. He knew something drastic had to be done: Soyko and Romp were coming after both of them.
“What are you talking about?” Cooper said automatically. “What’s coming back my way? My fiancée, the woman I love, has just been threatened in the most brutal and reprehensible fashion, and you’re making it sound like I’m responsible. My God, she could have been killed.”
They were standing in the hall outside Cooper’s office along with a second detective, a chubby Hispanic man. He had the scarred complexion of a public golf fairway but wore an impeccable herringbone suit. The Hispanic cop didn’t speak and Haney didn’t introduce him. Cooper had returned to his office from a quick court appearance and found the two of them waiting. Although the sergeant wasn’t smoking at the moment, his clothes reeked of tobacco and his breath smelled like a tiny reptile had died inside his mouth some time ago.
“Oh, you could maybe convince me you didn’t do that particular thing,” Haney responded. “That brawl. She is your fiancée, like you said. All I’m saying is, a lot of crap seems to be headed your way. That guy up in Commerce City. Bill McLean. Now this.”
“And just how am I connected to McLean, for God’s sake? Or that witness in Commerce City?”
“We know you were in court against McLean last week and that he kicked the living shit out of you. And we know what happened to the case against your murder client, Borders, when the witness died.”
Cooper looked at the detective like he just really noticed him for the first time. Haney had that all-over-bloated look that middle-aged men get from beer, fatty foods, and inactivity. The guy’s heart was probably encased in sludge, like a filthy carburetor, and any beat could be its last, Cooper thought. To the attorney, Haney seemed utterly diseased and foul.
