City Primeval

  Jerry Hunter had said to him, more than once, What's the matter you're not talking?

  The girl from the News had said to him, I think you're afraid of women. I think that's the root of the problem.

  The woman, Carolyn Wilder, had said to him, It was about what I expected it to be.

  He had put on his blue suit and left her house because he couldn't think of anything to say. All the way home he had tried to think of something that would have nailed her to the antique headboard, her mouth open; but he couldn't think of anything. He went to bed and woke up during the night thinking of lines, but none of them had it. Until finally he said to himself, What're you doing? What difference does it make what she thinks?

  He was working it out slowly, gradually eliminating personal feelings.

  But it was not until morning, when he walked into his living room and again saw the broken glass, that he finally realized what he should have said to her and it amazed him that it had nothing to do with him, personally.

  He should have told her flatly not trying to be clever, not trying to upstage her with the last word that if she continued to play games with Clement the time would come when Clement would kill her.

  It was that clear now in his mind. He did not believe for a moment she had had any kind of a kickback scheme going with Guy. She had not denied it directly, because she would feel no need to, would not dignify it. Carolyn Wilder, of all the Recorder's Court defense lawyers he knew, would be the last one to ever get involved in backcourt deals. Especially with Guy.

  He pried flattened chunks of lead from his living room wall and knew by looking at them they weren't from a P.38. When his landlady came in, approaching the window as though something might again come flying through the broken shards of glass, he told her it was probably kids with a B-B gun, over in the park. The landlady seemed to have doubts, questions, but asked only if he'd reported it to the police. Raymond reminded her he was the police. She told him he would have to pay to have the window replaced.

  That morning, Raymond sat at his desk in a gray tweed sportcoat he had not worn since spring since dieting and exercising and the coat felt loose, a size too large. He reviewed the Judicial Tenure Commission's Report on the investigation of Judge Guy, seeing familiar names, Carolyn Wilder's appearing several times.

  He did not tell his squad about the shooting whether it was an attempt on his life or a challenge not because he considered it a personal matter, but because he didn't want to spend the morning discussing it. He was quiet this morning, into himself, and they left him alone. They made phone calls. They worked on other cases. They looked at hard-core sex photos they had picked up during the evidence-search of a victim's house: exclaiming, whistling, Wendell pretending to be sick; Hunter studying one of the photos and Norb Bryl saying to him, You go for that kinky stuff, huh? Hunter saying, Jesus, Christ, what kind of pervert you think I am? And Bryl saying, Oh, one about six foot, sandy mustache, green-striped shirt . . . At noon, Raymond told them he was going to skip lunch.

  After they had left he took off his sportcoat, unlocked the plywood cabinet next to the GE battery charger and hung his .38 snub-nose with the rubber bands around the grip on a hook inside the cabinet. He brought out, then, a shoulder holster that held a 9-mm blue-steel Colt automatic with a hickory grip, slipped the rig on, adjusted it snugly beneath his left arm and put on his sportcoat again, now a perfect fit.

  Chapter 19

  SANDY WOKE UP lying on her side, feeling Clement cuddled close to her and something hard pressing against her bare behind.

  She said, Is that for me, or you have to go to the bathroom?

  Clement didn't answer. She hadn't heard him come in last night. When she shifted to her back, turning her head to look at the Oklahoma Wildman, he made a face with his eyes still closed and said, Get off me.

  Pardon me, did I touch you or something? . . . You have a big time last night? No answer. Well, I was somewhere, too, if you think I was sitting home.

  Clement's little-boy face looked red and swollen; his breath smelled of sour-mash whiskey.

  The wildman all tuckered out? You big shit, where'd you go?

  Clement opened his eyes, blinked a few times to focus, seeing noon sunlight in the window and Sandy's frizzy hair sticking out golden from the pillow. He said, I went to that place out Wood'ard . . . took me back home it was so good. Clement's mouth was partly open against the pillow and he talked as though he had a toothache or had just eaten Mexican peppers.

  Sandy said, What? . . . What place?

  He worked his mouth to loosen the stickiness. Line up your Albanian, I'm ready for him now, Clement said. You all be sitting there when I walk in. You introduce us . . . we'll look into this business.

  What place?

  Uncle Deano's.

  Jesus Christ, Sandy said, he's Albanian, he doesn't like Country. He likes disco.

  Clement stared at his little partner, waiting for what she said to make sense.

  Finally he said, Honey? . . . I want to talk to this man, I don't want to dance with him.

  Well, what if he doesn't want to go there?

  Hey, aren't you with the good hands people? Clement inched his own hand over as he said it and caught Sandy between her slender legs. Aren't you?

  Cut it out.

  Why, what's this? Clement closed his eyes as he felt around. Whiskers? You growing whiskers on me?

  That hurts.

  Yeah, but hurts good, don't it? Huh? How 'bout right there? Feel pretty good?

  Sandy rolled toward him, pushing out her hips, then stopped. I ain't gonna do it less you brush your teeth.

  Come on, Clement said, we don't have to kiss. Let's just do it.

  Clement laid around the rest of the day while he thought and stared out at Motor City. Sandy sat at the desk to write a letter to her mother in French Lick, Indiana, that began Dear Mom, The weather has been very warm for October, but I don't mind it a bit as I hate cold weather. Brrrr. And stopped there. She rattled the ballpoint pen between her front teeth until Clement told her to, goddamn-it, cut it out.

  She went over and turned on the TV and said, Hey, Nashville on the Road . . . my God, anybody ever tell you you look like Marty Robbins? You and him could be twin brothers. Clement didn't answer. Sandy turned to him again after a few minutes and said, That doesn't make any sense, does it? Marty goes, 'yWould you like to sing another song for us?' And Donna Fargo you hear her? she goes, 'yI can't hardly pass up an offer like that.' What offer? Marty didn't offer her nothing. Clement was staring at her, hard. Sandy got dressed and left the apartment without saying another word.

  What Clement thought about was a hundred thousand dollars and the possibility of prying it out of Carolyn Wilder. He heard himself saying to her, Here's how it is. You give me the hunnert or else I send the cops this notebook, has your phone number written in the judge's hand, the initials of your company . . . Wilder, Sultan and Fine . . . I tear a few pages out of the book so on the lefthand page facing your number and all're these amounts of money, payments, dates and arrows pointing over to you. What do you think? She had hung up the phone. That's what she thought. She was a tough lady. She didn't get wimpy or act scared for no good reason. She listened and then hung up the phone.

  Sandy came back after a couple of hours and glanced at him as she turned on the television. He didn't even look at her, just continued to stare out the window.

  Clement thought and thought and finally with the sun going down and the tall glass stacks of the Renaissance Center turning silver he said to himself, Jesus Christ, you think too much. That's the problem, you dumb shit. Thinking.

  What was the quickest, surest way to get money off a person? Stick a gun in their mouth and ear back the hammer. Your money or your life, partner. Hell, that's the way it's always been done throughout history and around the world. Take it and git.

  If Carolyn won't go for the con, shit, it was a dumb idea anyway, knock her on her ass, straddle her and let her look into th
e barrel of a Walther except, shit, he'd gotten rid of it.

  Well, some other gun then.

  Which reminded him, he'd have to go shopping before meeting Sandy's Albanian. Go in some nigger bar and make a purchase. He thought of Marcus Sweeton and said to himself, no, stay away from Mr. Sweety for the time being. Sweety had hard bark on him, but he had been messing with dope lately and he wasn't sure where Sweety stood on matters of trust and not fucking an old buddy. Who could you trust these days? He looked over at Sandy curled up on the sofa watching Mike Douglas. Bless her heart. Clement told her to go ahead and watch her program, he'd fix supper.

  They dug into fried steaks breaded country-style and served with Stove-Top Dressing and Miller High Life in the dining-L while the city outside turned dark and began to take on its evening glitter. It was Clement's favorite time of the day. He said, All right, I'm paying full attention now. Tell me about Albanians.

  Sandy said, Okay, you know where like Italy is, how it sticks down? Albania is over on the other side of it.

  Clement thought, Jesus Christ But he had asked for this and he said, Yeah? shoveling Stove-Top into his mouth and sounding all ears.

  The Albanians that live here, Sandy said, are mostly you'll get a kick out of this the really hardass ones that wouldn't live under the Turks or the Communists or somebody. See, so they came here.

  What's hardass about 'em?

  Well, like Skender says, it's like if you do something to his brother you're doing it to him. I mean they really stick up for kin if anything happens to them. Like a husband beats up his wife? She goes home, tells her dad. The dad goes looking for his son-in-law and shoots him.

  Is that right?

  But then the brother of the son-in-law shoots the dad and the dad's son, the brother of the guy's wife, shoots the brother of the husband. And sometimes they have to get somebody from Yugoslavia, where most of the hardass ones are, to come over and settle it, it gets so mixed up and confusing with everybody shooting each other.

  Where'n the hell are we, Clement said, Detroit or East Tennessee?

  A bunch of 'em live in Hamtramck mixed in with all the Polacks, Sandy said. Some others live out in the suburbs, Farmington Hills, all over. There're more Albanians here than any place in the United States, but they still have these old ways. Skender says it's called besa, like the Code of the West.

  The what?

  Besa. It means like a promise. Like, I give you my word. Or sometimes he refers to it as 'ythe Custom.'

  Shit, Clement said, how come I never heard of 'em?

  Skender says, 'yIf someone kills my brother and I do nothing, then I am nothing. I can never' how'd he say it? 'yput my face out among my people.'

  That's the way he talks?

  Listen, they're very serious. They get into one of these blood feuds, they have to hide out to stay alive. That's why Skender has the secret room. He built it himself four years ago.

  I think he's giving you a bunch of shit, Clement said, digging into his dressing.

  Really. Sandy was wide-eyed. I saw the room again. It's hidden down in the basement behind a cinderblock wall that doesn't even have a door.

  Yeah? How you get into it?

  He turns this switch that's like part of the furnace, up above it, and the wall you hear this motor hum and part of the wall comes open, real slow. That's where the safe is . . . with forty thousand dollars inside.

  He show it to you?

  He told me it's in there.

  Uh-huh, Clement said. Well, if it's a secret room, what'd he even let you in there for?

  Sandy got up and went into the kitchen. She came back with her purse. I've been trying to tell you I went out with him last night, but you were into your thinking time. Who am I? I'm not important. Well, take a look at this, buddy. Sandy brought a small blue-felt box out of her purse, opened it and placed it next to Clement's beer glass where the overhead light would reflect off the diamond in tiny glints of color.

  Skender wants to marry me.

  Clement chewed, swallowed, took a sip of beer and sat back with the ring pinched between his fingers.

  What's it worth?

  Almost four thousand.

  Bullshit.

  You a diamond expert now? I had it appraised over at the RenCen. That's where I went while you were thinking. It's worth three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. Plus tax.

  He proposed to you? . . . What'd you tell him?

  I said I'd have to ask my brother.

  Before he left the apartment Clement went into Del Weems' closet and picked out one of his sports jackets, the pink and yellow and green Lily Pulitzer model. He took it down to the lobby with him, handed it across the desk to Thomas Edison, the doorman, and said, Hey, Tom, this is for you. Case I don't see you again.

  The doorman, who had seen the coat on Del Weems throughout the past summer, said, You leaving us?

  Yeah, time to move on. Feel like I'm living in a fish bowl people watching every move I make.

  Yeah, well, I don't know as I can take this coat.

  Don't be bashful, Clement said. It's for letting me use your car . . . shit, for being a good guy. I'll tell you something. I know white people that've been personal friends of mine for years I couldn't count on like I have you. You wear it and watch all the colored girls' eyes light up.

  It was nearly eight o'clock and Thomas Edison was going off duty. The night man was standing with him at the desk. They watched Clement walk over to the bank of elevators and get in, going down to the garage. As the door closed, Thomas Edison said to the night man, What did he say to me?

  What you think he said, the night man answered. It was mighty white of you, boy.

  Thomas Edison took the card out of his pocket that the black detective Wendell Robinson was the name had given him, picked up the phone and dialed the number on the card for Homicide, Squad Seven.

  He said, That redneck motherfucker you looking for's driving a '76 Mercury Montego, light blue, old beat up piece of shit . . . What? . . . Wait now, I'll tell you what. You ask me one question at a time, my man, and I'll see if I can give you the answers. How that be?

  Chapter 20

  RAYMOND CAME OUT of Sweety's Lounge and walked up to the house next door, 2925, the lower flat. Dull light showed in the windows; the porch was dark. He rang the bell. The black man in the velour bathrobe who opened the door said, How you doing? stepping aside. Come on in.

  Raymond wondered if the guy thought he was someone else. He walked in, smelled incense and turning saw clear plastic covers on the furniture, heard Motown music he couldn't identify coming from somewhere in back, saw a photograph in an illuminated frame of a young man with long light-brown hair parted in the middle and a full beard. Raymond came all the way around to face the black man, Mr. Sweety, standing now with the door closed behind him, Mr. Sweety raising a hand to rub his face thoughtfully and giving Raymond a flash of gold rings.

  You're not working tonight, Raymond said.

  Yeah, I'm working. I just ain't working yet. He was studying Raymond, eye to eye with him, though Mr. Sweety was much heavier and when Raymond looked at the dark velour robe trimmed in beige and red he thought of draperies. Mr. Sweety said, We ain't gonna bullshit each other, are we? You look like you might chew some plug, officer, but I doubt if you smoke what I got.

  Raymond was showing his I. D. now. As he said his name his beeper went off.

  Mr. Sweety said, I like that. Got sound effects. You want to use the phone it's in the hall there.

  When Raymond came back in the room Mr. Sweety was sitting at one end of the couch with his legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. He said, I didn't think you was the dope squad. They come in, you should see the outfits, shirt open down to here, earrings, some of 'em . . .

  Raymond sat down across from him. He looked at the photo in the illuminated frame again.

  What kind of car you drive?

  Eldorado. You want the license? S-W-E-E-T-Y.

  You own a '76 Mont
ego?

  No, never did.

  You know anybody who does?

  Not offhand.

  How's your buddy Clement Mansell doing?

  Oh, shit, Mr. Sweety said, tired, shaking his head. I knew it.

  What's that?

  I mean I was afraid we gonna get to him. I haven't seen the wildman in, I believe a year or so. Man runs too fast. I settle down, give up that craziness.

  You saw his girlfriend the other day.

  Oh, yeah, Sandy come in, Sandy like her weed. She come in time to time.

  Sandy tell you why he did the judge?

  Sandy don't tell me nothing. Little jive chick run in run out.

  We can close you down, Raymond said.

  Man, I know that.

  Send you out to DeHoCo for a year. I thought you might want to trade.

  What am I gonna trade you? I don't have nothing to give's what I'm saying.

  The little jive chick ran in, Raymond said, but she didn't run right out again, she stayed a while. Didn't she?

  Sampling the goods. You know women, they like to shop.

  Raymond hesitated, then took a chance. How come she doesn't want Clement to know she was here?

  The question caught Sweety unprepared. Raymond saw it, the startled look in the man's eyes, there and then gone.

  You seem confused. What's the problem?

  Ain't any problem.

  Why would Clement care if she came here?

  I wouldn't know if he does or he don't, where his head's at these days.

  Get off of it, Raymond thought. His gaze moved to the Scandinavian-looking guy in the photo and back to Mr. Sweety. Why do you think he killed the judge?

  I don't know as he did.

  Yeah, he did, Raymond said. But he didn't have anybody driving for him. That make sense to you?

  Man, come on, I don't know nothing, I don't want to know nothing.

  What reason would he have?

  Mr. Sweety sighed. You have to ask him that.

  I did, Raymond said.

  Yeah? . . . What'd he say?

  He said what difference does it make. Those were his words, Raymond said. What difference does it make?