Stick didn’t know about the gals, but the buddies were something to think about.
Every once in a while he’d think about the doll box, too. He had only held it a moment, but he remembered, in that moment, the box was a lot lighter than he’d expected it to be.
And he kept thinking about the cop who’d arrested him, the young guy. He could tell the guy was eager.
The young cop’s name was Cal Brown.
Once he said to a superior, “But look, I’ve learned that already. I know it. Responsibility? Having people under you? Giving them paychecks and shit? I had sixty guys under me and I kept them fucking alive. I’ve done that, man, what, when I was twenty-three.”
He had been a combat infantry officer in Vietnam and had been with the police department seven years, since trying out with the San Diego Chargers as a free-agent wide receiver and ruining one of his knees before the season started.
Today he was having lunch at the Hellas Cafe on Monroe with Emory Parks, the young little fat black assistant from the prosecutor’s office. Cal Brown ordered the stuffed grape leaves, feta cheese salad, and a glass of retsina. Emory Parks ordered roast lamb and lima beans and hot tea. They were waiting for the food to come. Emory Parks was fooling with his tea bag. Cal Brown was hunched over the table on his elbows.
“You read up on it yet?”
“I haven’t had time, man. I probably won’t read it till we’re in court.”
“You met the guy before, three months ago. Three and a half.”
“Refresh my memory.”
“Ernest Stickley, Junior, auto theft. Charge dropped at the exam, no positive ID.”
“Shit,” the little prosecutor said, “you know how many Ernest Stickley, Juniors, there are?”
“This one was in on the Hudson’s thing.”
“You’d like to believe that.”
“His roomie,” Cal said, “the guy he lives with in a four-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-month apartment out in Troy—listen to this part—is the same guy who was the eyeball witness to the auto theft and lost his memory.”
Emory Parks stopped fooling with his tea bag. “Is that so?”
“Interesting?”
“Where’s this boy Stickley now, out?”
“In. Passed on the bond, passed on the free lawyer. He gives you his name, rank, and serial number and raises his hand when he has to go to the bathroom.”
“What’s he arraigned on?”
“Larceny from a building. Conspiring.”
The little prosecutor frowned now. “Larceny? Shit, you got a murder in there, haven’t you?”
“Murder? We got two murders. We got all fucking kinds of numbers going. That’s why we’re talking. Listen—the gun used on the window washer? Same one killed the two guys out at Northland. In the parking lot.”
“Well, you don’t need him for that. Man did the community a favor, as I recall.”
“That’s not my question. Right now I’m giving you facts, okay? One of the guys killed at Northland—I don’t remember which one—had a piece of a grocery bag in his hand, and a few bills. From a store that’d been knocked over about an hour before. But the guys that knocked over the store weren’t black.”
“This one, Stickley—you show his picture out there?”
“With the Southfield police. Manager says no, he never saw him. One of the checkout girls, she cocks her head, well, maybe. She couldn’t say for sure.”
“So you got to stay with Hudson’s, which is better anyway.”
“Not necessarily,” Cal said. “Yes, it’s better, but I mean there’re other possibilities, at least two dozen robberies out there, all armed, same everything, two guys come in, very polite, but no bullshit. We can go that way, right? Follow it up and probably get a conviction.”
“You mean hand it to all the little police departments out there, they ain’t cutting their grass they can work on it, and the first one off his ass and gets an ID gets an armed robbery bust. That saves you some work, doesn’t it?”
“Look,” Cal said, “since I’m buying the fucking lunch, don’t tell me things I know, okay?”
“Excuse my friend,” the little prosecutor said to the waitress putting their plates in front of them. “He likes to talk dirty, he wasn’t insulting the food.”
The waitress looked at him but didn’t change her expression. She either didn’t know what he was talking about or didn’t care. It was one thirty and the place was crowded.
Cal didn’t look at his stuffed grape leaves. He said, “We can send this clown out to the country. There’re a dozen circuit courts he can get lost in.”
“Or?” Emory Parks was starting on his lamb and lima beans.
“Let me tell you the rest. A different gun was used on Billy Ruiz. We found it in a trash thing, a Colt Python three five seven.”
“Belonging to whom?”
“Guy out in Bloomfield Hills. Registered—you listening?”
“I can eat and still listen, Calvin. It’s a trick I learned.”
“The Colt’s registered to this guy and”—Cal paused—“you ready? So is the thirty-eight they used on the window washer.”
“That’s impressive.” Emory Parks nodded, chewing his lamb. “You’re keeping it neat, but you’re still out in suburbia with the two guns.”
“They were stolen three and a half months ago, in May,” Cal said. “Stickley was acquitted in May. The two dozen or so robberies that all smell alike go back to May. Two guys get in the business, liquor stores, supermarkets, doing pretty well—you follow me?”
“And they decide it’s time to go big time.”
“And they get greedy, right? and go for the big banana.”
“Bring some friends in.”
“Bring somebody in. A white guy and two gentlemen of the Negro persuasion go into the Hudson’s office. Not Stickley, though, an unknown male Caucasian, Billy Ruiz, and another black gent with an unhappy childhood. One of whom shot Billy Ruiz in the back on the way out. Why?”
“Shit, anybody’d shoot Billy Ruiz in the back if they got the chance. That’s not the question. Ask the right one,” the little prosecutor said. “No, let me ask you one. How’d you know the money was still there, in the box?”
“Not the money, checks. Just checks.”
“Not the money?”
“Let me tell it,” Cal said. “We’re looking all over the fucking store, top to bottom, and we find a little something—this is the next day—in Billy Ruiz’s street clothes. They’re in another trash thing, on the same floor we found the Python.”
“Something in his clothes.”
“In a pocket. A little toy soldier, thing’s two inches high, costs nine and a half bucks. No sales slip. Where’s it from? The toy department. One floor below the office. What was Billy Ruiz doing in the toy department? We start looking, two o’clock in the morning—this is the second day after, now—we found the doll box with the checks in it.”
“The question,” the little prosecutor said, “what would he want with just checks?”
“He comes in the second day after,” Cal said. “Keep that in mind. What if he thought the money was there, too?”
“I see that,” the little prosecutor said. “Like maybe somebody’s fucking somebody over.”
“Like maybe somebody came in the day before,” Cal said, “and picked up another dolly box with a mark on it, but they don’t tell Mr. Stickley. He’s supposed to come out, they open the box and they say, Yeah—giving him the dead eyes—now where’s the real stuff? But he doesn’t come out. He looks around and he’s got a forty-four Mag in his ass. He doesn’t know he wasn’t picking up the money, because he doesn’t know what was in the box.”
“And you haven’t told him.”
“Not yet. That’s why we’re having the lunch.”
The little prosecutor paused. “The store, they haven’t released the news yet that any money is missing.”
“They don’t want to advertise for any repeat busines
s.”
“How much?”
“In the neighborhood of eight-seven.”
The little prosecutor smiled. “And you got this boy for larceny from a building, which I doubt will even get to trial. He says, ‘I didn’t know what was in the box besides a doll,’ and you didn’t let him look, or walk out with it.”
“We figured, we were sure he’d be identified in the office.”
“You haven’t mentioned what his roommate was doing that day. What do they do, both of them?”
“Yes indeedy,” Cal said, “how do these two pay the rent? Stickley, unemployed, drives a cement truck when he isn’t behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle. Frank J. Ryan, that’s his roomie, is a car salesman. Last place of employment, Red Bowers Chevrolet. You ready to hear it again? Three and a half months ago.”
“You got a sheet on him?”
“Frank’s been a clean liver up to now, or else he’s never been caught. He’s a dude, with the hair and the mod suit and shit. I present myself at the apartment with a search warrant and tell him his buddy’s been arrested. Oh my, he says. I don’t believe it. Stick? But he’s a nice guy. I’m thinking, Not Johnny, he was always such a good boy, good to his mother.”
“What’d you find?”
“The search revealed nothing unusual or incriminating other than nine hundred bucks under the sink in an Oxydol box. Clever? Ryan goes, Gee, how did that get there? I said to him, Don’t you ever do the dishes? He goes, Oh yeah, Stickley won it at Hazel Park, but he never knew where he’d put it.”
The little prosecutor kept his plate neat and didn’t let anything touch. He moved a few lima beans away from his mashed potatoes before slicing off a piece of lamb. He said, “Why don’t you have the Hudson’s people take a look at him?”
“Because the only one they saw—the only face—was Billy Ruiz. The other two, all they’re sure of, one was black, one white.”
“Well, maybe there’s some liquor store and supermarket people out there can identify Ryan as well as Stickley.”
“That could be,” Cal said, “but then I wouldn’t have anything, would I?”
“Your grape leaves are going to get cold.”
Cal started eating and neither of them spoke while Emory Parks finished his roast lamb and poured himself more tea. He said, “I agree we should save them for the Hudson’s job and get a murder conviction, besides find the money. We’re building a new Renaissance Center, getting downtown all fixed up, we can’t have this kind of shit going on. Doesn’t look good, does it?”
“It fucks up our image,” Cal said, “not to mention people getting killed.”
“All right, you got two male Caucasians,” Emory Parks said, “but no lead on the brother. What I’ve been wondering, if somebody might’ve bankrolled this deal.”
“Bankroll? What’s to bankroll? They get a secondhand bus driver suit from the Goodwill.”
“How about the people in the office?”
“That’s a possibility. They knew when to walk in. Two, the check sacks were sealed, hadn’t been opened. So we assume they knew the money sacks from the check sacks. I don’t want to sound racially biased, Emory, but there’s a cute little black chick up there that’s sort of caught our eye.”
Emory Parks was thinking again.
“You didn’t tell me where this Frank Ryan was the day of the robbery.”
“He said he was home sleeping, but he thinks Stickley went out for a while in the morning. That afternoon, they got three broads can swear they were out sitting by the pool.”
“Must be nice to be unemployed,” Emory Parks said. He looked thoughtful again.
“I talked to the broads,” Cal said, “asking them what they knew about the two guys. Every one of them: Oh, they’re business consultants. They have something to do with sales training or something like that. Nice guys, and they throw keen parties. I go back to Ryan. What’s this I hear you’re a business consultant? He says oh, that was just a little patio bullshit they handed the girls one time. They didn’t want the girls to know they were unemployed. Oh, is that why you throw these big parties? He said they’d bought a lot of stuff one time and had a little bit left. The little bit, two cases of booze. There was one girl”—he took a small notebook out of his pocket and turned a few pages—“Arlene Downey. I asked her if she knew the two guys. Yeah, she knew them, but just slightly. I asked her if she knew what they did for a living. Right then, just for a second, her expression—like the light went on and her mother caught her doing it on the couch. Then she was evasive, had been out of town a lot, hadn’t seen much of them.”
Emory Parks was smiling a little. “Right there, aren’t they? But you can’t quite reach them. I think . . . what you’re going to have to do . . . first thing, tell Ryan his partner needs somebody to post his bond. I think, playing Mr. Innocent Nice Guy, he’ll run down there and do it.”
“Yeah,” Cal said, “I think he would. He knows I know he’s got some money. Yeah—”
“Then you got the two of them looking at each other, the one guy facing a conviction. What’s the other guy going to say to him?”
“He’s going to say, Jesus, it’s a shitty deal, but hang in there, man. It’s like, Gee, I’m sorry you got leukemia, but there isn’t anything I can do about it.”
“And what’s Stickley thinking, feeling his temporary freedom? He’s already served time, he knows what it’s like in there.”
“He’s thinking, Why me and not them? See,” Cal said, “the trouble is I can’t mention the money to him, let him know he’s been fucked over. We can’t let that out yet to anybody.”
“You don’t have to tell him,” Emory Parks said. “His buddies, maybe his roommate if he’s one of them, they don’t know what’s in Mr. Stickley’s head. They don’t know what he knows or doesn’t know. He was in jail, they couldn’t touch him, they hold their breath. But if he’s out—can they take a chance letting him go to trial? Won’t the cops try and plea-bargain with him? They already shot poor Billy Ruiz. They going to take a chance on this cat telling stories about them?”
“It’s interesting,” Cal said.
“It’s not only interesting,” the little prosecutor said, “it’s all you got. Unless you find out one of them’s been jumping that cute little black chick in the office. Then you got a lead on something else.”
“Listen,” Cal said, “I think I’ve got enough to work on for a while. Yes sir, I believe this could open it up.”
“If you plant a little seed with this Stickley before you turn him loose.”
“Yeah”—Cal was nodding—“make sure he realizes what a shitty deal he’s getting.”
“Not only a shitty deal, make him realize life can be dangerous out there. Man disappears for a time, they find him in the trunk of a car out at the airport. Say to him he ought to be very careful where he goes, where he meets his friends.”
“Yeah,” Cal said, “get him to reconsider who his friends are, who can do him the most good.”
“That’s it.” Emory Parks smiled then. “You’re going to take all this back to Thirteen hundred and Walter’s going to say, ‘You’ve been talking to that fat little nigger again, haven’t you?’ And you’ll say, ‘Well, I just picked at his brain a little.’ ”
“Your ass,” Cal said. “I’ll tell him I figured it all out myself. You got a free lunch, you fat little nigger, what more do you want?”
22
“WHY DON’T YOU JUST NOT say anything?” Stick said. “If you don’t talk for a while, it’s okay with me.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” Frank said. “You think I’m blaming you, for Christ sake? I’m trying to find out how it happened.”
“How it happened? I reach for the box and the guy, the cop, puts a fucking gun in my face is how it happened. They’re waiting there—this great idea—they know exactly where it was.”
“But how could they?”
“How do I know? They found out or somebody told them—shit, I don’t know. This fu
cking great idea—I should be in Florida right now, I’m facing a robbery conviction.”
“Conspiring to commit larceny from a building,” Frank said.
“At the moment. But the cop, you know what the hotshot cop says? ‘Maybe at the exam we’ll change it to robbery armed. And if we do that, we might as well go all the way to murder, right?’ ”
“The guy’s blowing smoke up your ass. I think they’ll go in on the larceny thing and get it thrown out.”
“Yeah, well I’ll tell the judge that, you don’t think I’ll get convicted. I’m facing the fucking thing and you’re sitting home with your nice thoughts.”
They walked along in silence, away from the Wayne County jail building down St. Antoine toward the parking structure. It was four in the afternoon, warm and sunny. They had walked down this street once before—it seemed a long time ago—on their way to the Greek place, the Bouzouki.
Frank said, “You want a drink?”
“I want to take a shower and change my clothes,” Stick said.
Frank was silent again. Everything he said came out wrong, not the way he intended it, or Stick would turn it around. He didn’t know what to say to him, but he kept trying anyway. Walking along in silence, Stick next to him, was worse.
“There was a cop, a hippie-looking guy,” Frank said, “he was out a couple of times. Came with a search warrant the first time. I said, You don’t need that, we got nothing to hide. He found the dough under the sink. I told him it was our nest egg, we’d won it at the track.”
“He talk to anybody else there?”
“He talked to everybody. The ladies told him we’re consultants.”
“How about Arlene? He talk to her?”
“I don’t know, I guess so.”
“She was away,” Stick said, “in Chicago or someplace.”
“She’s back now. I’ve seen her a couple of times.”
“But you don’t know if he talked to her.”
“You afraid he told her something? What’s the guy know? There’s one little piece in the paper about you. It said you’d been arrested, but it was only speculated, in connection with the Hudson’s thing. See, they’re not playing it up because they don’t have a case against you. They start bragging they got the guy and then you walk out, they don’t look so good.”