Dead Birmingham (12 page)

“Maybe not. Maybe he just knows the guy, but for some reason or another, Ganato wanted to talk to this guy awfully bad, after what I told him.”

“Which means . . . ”

“Right. We talk to him first. Let's go get him.” Broom turned to Mack. “Okay, Irish guy, come on. I'll need you in the interrogation room. You know the lingo.”

Mack smiled broadly. “Real police work, again? I thought you'd never ask.”

 

Chapter 23

 

Yim's heart thudded dully but quickly in her chest. Where had Bone gone? After they had boosted the electronics store, he had acted nervous, and said something about a pale store detective in a dark suit. Yim hadn't seen the man, but she trusted Bone absolutely. She had gone straight to the meeting point, a crowded video arcade, and waited in a dead corner, pretending to observe a few kids in an impromptu tournament. The little dead zone was a place that she and Bone would always hook up after a boost. She waited patiently for him to embrace her suddenly from behind, and mutter some cool reassurance in his best fake Barry White baritone. But not today. One hour became two, then three, and then the afternoon had slipped by completely, and still no sign of Bone.

Convinced now that he had either been arrested by the detective he had spoken of, or perhaps the police, Yim began to follow the Standard Operating Procedure laid out by Scott LaRue, that all of their group had long before agreed to follow. She began making her way back to the Cabana, their base, taking Scott's special route.

She did exactly as they had rehearsed, in words and even in a couple of dry runs. A crazy, zigzag course, something out of a spy movie, or so it had seemed to her when Scott had dreamed it up. Now Yim found the Surveillance Detection and Prevention Route oddly comforting. Scott really had thought of everything, Yim thought. She was very cautious, and methodical, but she never spotted the stealthy man who shadowed her so patiently, so carefully, from sometimes blocks away.

* * *

Johnny “Shakes” Sheehan wasn't taking any chances. He didn't know why the Ganato guys were after him, but it had to be pretty important. He had recognized Francis Lorenzo, Don G's right-hand man, in the crew they'd sent to collect him. Johnny knew that meant something pretty bad for him. Johnny Shakes mulled these things over while squatting behind a dumpster in an alley in the labyrinthine University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital complex. What he needed was a plan.

Here, at least, he was safe, he figured. He could hang around the mid-town area for a while, and make a few calls. Try to get some kind of a bead on why the Dago Don was out to get him. Get in touch with Longshot Lonny, and try to broker some kind of a deal. He hadn't done anything too bad recently, that he recalled. At the most he was guilty of running a floating poker game or two on Ganato turf, but who gave a damn about stuff like that any more?
 

Johnny had recovered sufficient bravado to cross the street and enter a small diner called The Motion Rests. There were a bunch of lawyer types sitting in dark little booths have a dinner or a belt or two. Johnny slid up to the bar and smiled at the young lady bartender. She gave him an appraising look and smiled back.

Maybe this is a college chick, Johnny Shakes reasoned.
If I play my cards right, I might end up sacking out at her pad for a couple days while I get my shit straight. No way I'm going back to mine until things cool off.

“Bloody Mary, babe.” Johnny winked at the girl and played it suave.

I
'll just chill here and tip a couple back until it darkens up outside. Get this chick's number. Sort things out. Yeah. Get my shit straight.

The girl slid Johnny his drink and smiled at him broadly. Hi, I'm Heather, her name tag proclaimed.
 

Johnny, you old devil. You got her eating outta your hand and you haven't even fed her a line yet. Johnny took the first sip of his Bloody Mary. He gave the bar a little slap of appreciation.
 

“Heather, you're an artist,” he said.

“Always a pleasure to serve someone famous,” the girl named Heather replied, still smiling.
 

Johnny Shake's brow furrowed and he looked down at his napkin, where he saw now that Heather had written “Look at the T.V. set” and his eyes went up to one of the screens that bracketed the counters. He saw his own face, and heard the announcer saying, “If you have seen this person, notify law enforcement immediately. He is wanted for questioning in connection with . . . ”

“Finish your drink, Mr. Sheehan, and then we'd like you to come with us.”

In the mirror behind the bar, Johnny saw two Birmingham Police officers standing behind him.

“Well, so much for getting my shit together,” Johnny mumbled. He shrugged, laughed, and tipped back his drink. That Heather really did make a fine Bloody Mary.

 

Chapter 24

 

“So you're Johnny Shakes.”
 

“They call me that.”

“Why? Why do they call you that?”

“When I was younger, I don't know, in my early twenties, I always wanted those James Bond Martinis. You know, Vodka and Vermouth—”

“—Yeah, okay, I get it. So you're a class act. Tell me what the Ganato family wants with you.”

Johnny Shakes became Johnny Squirms. “I don't know.”

“Funny. You look like you know.”

“I know a lot of things, but I don't know that.”

“You know a lot of things, huh? That's interesting.”

Broom leaned in close. “Suppose you tell me why kids are getting killed in this city. My city. Suppose you start with that.”

Johnny squirmed some more, and even shook just a little.

“What kids?”

“I think that is one of the things you do know, Johnny, and before you leave here, you'll tell me.”

“I don't have to tell you nothing.”

“Not right now, Johnny. You can clam up, lawyer up, and bail out. But then you're just going to end up in another room, with other guys, and the guys talking to you won't be the good guys. They'll be hoods like you. Ganato's men, maybe. I hear they want you for questioning, too. I can just picture it. They'll be guys with ball bats, blowtorches, and other play pretties. And no lawyer in this world can get you out of that one.”

Johnny Shakes appeared to weigh the likelihood of this scenario in his head, and cautiously ventured a scenario of his own. “So what if I tell you something? What if I had nothing to do with any of it? What if it's all stuff that I just heard, and maybe ain't even true?”

“I'd say that I heard everything off the record, Johnny. I'd say that I'd like to hear whatever it is that you heard. I'd say start talking. I'm all ears.”

Johnny swallowed and made a bitter face, like whatever he'd swallowed had cost him something.
 

“Off the record.” His eyes wanted Broom to verify his promise.
 

“Off the record, Johnny. Completely.”

Johnny nodded. “Yeah, okay. I heard some things, all right. Like maybe there's an old man down on Five Points got something stolen.”

He looked to Broom as if for confirmation. He got none.

“Go on.”
 

“Yeah.” Johnny ran his fingers through his hair and then waved them around in the air for a second. “So there's this guy who came down to visit Longshot Lonny.” He stopped for a moment, as if unable to go on.

Broom reached over and touched his shoulder. “Johnny, I swear to you, nobody's going to hear this came from you. You heard a story. Tell me the story.”

Johnny looked up into the bigger man's eyes. “I hate coppers, you know that? I really hate them.”

“You know Johnny, I'm really not surprised to hear that.”

“But you. I always heard you were a fair guy.”

“No one will ever know where I got my details, Johnny. I'll make sure the word on you is you didn't talk.”

Johnny nodded slowly, but there was still a bitter caste to his features, and a pallor to his face. “Yeah. Okay. So here's you're story, big man.”

He stared hard at the table surface, as if the details he was giving were written there. “So there I am, sitting with Longshot Lonny O'Malley and some of his guys, you know? I mean, we're playing cards. Just a friendly game of poker to pass the time. We're all having a good time, when someone comes in, one of Lonny's guys, and he says, ‘Hey boss, there's some guy out here wants to see you.' Like that.”

Johnny Shakes paused and cracked his knuckles.

“Lonny says, ‘Bring him in,' so the guy brings in this big mean-looking guy, and I'm surprised because he looks Italian, you know. I mean, there's no love lost between Longshot and Don Ganato, so I'm thinking, what the hell is this? What's an Italian doing in here? Maybe he's a spy for Lonny? But then I listen and I understand that this guy is from some other outfit, from way up north. One of the big time families, maybe. This guy's been sent down to look for a contractor to take care of some problem.”

“They came all of this way just to hire a gun? The mob families up north don't have guns of their own?” Broom shook his head. “You've got to do better than that, Johnny.”

Johnny held up his hands as if to ward off a blow. “No, it's not just that they were looking for
any
gun. They were looking for a particular guy, and he's hard to get in contact with. It took Lonny a while and he made a few calls, but I think he finally made a connection on it. Lonny knew somebody who knew somebody, you know what I mean? Somebody who could get in touch with the guy. So he sent one of his guys somewhere to make the deal. This hotshot from up north gave Lonny the money to make it all go down.”

Johnny Shakes nodded vigorously, as if he suddenly liked his own line of reasoning.
 

“This put Lonny in good with this northern mob. Kind of headed the Ganato crew off at the pass, y'know? It put Lonny in the sunshine with a bigger outfit for the day when he's planning to take over. I guess he thought that it couldn't hurt. Anyway, Longshot Lonny just acted as a, I don't know, a middleman. I got no idea who really wanted it done, or sent the money down, or who this spook is they wanted hired. For that matter, I doubt Lonny even knew the details. That kind of stuff doesn't usually get talked over.”

“Come on, Johnny, that's some pretty vague stuff. Give me some details, or we got no deal. You mean to tell us that you never even heard a name mentioned?”

“Easy, easy. I mean they called him, well, not a name. And they never said the name of who was gonna get whacked, if that's what you're after. But the guy they wanted, they kept calling him by a nickname, like maybe that's what everybody calls him, like, you know, an alias, like Scarface or Machine Gun, or, ah—”

“—Or Shakes,” Mack put in sardonically.

Johnny ran his fingers through his chestnut hair and smiled nervously.

“Yeah, I guess. Like Shakes.”

“So what was this nickname, Johnny?” Broom asked. “What was it that Lonny and the guy from up north called this guy?”

“Heh, it's funny, but they called him The Foreigner. That's what they kept calling him. The Foreigner.”

 

Chapter 25

 

Dextra was crossing 21st Street when she caught sight of Yim approaching from the opposite direction. She waved both arms until Yim caught sight of her and headed toward her. As she drew close, Dextra saw that she looked like she had passed a rough night. Her clothes were rumpled, and her hair was a mess.

In the way of a greeting, Yim asked her, “Where have you been?”
 

Dextra felt herself trembling. “I—I went to see Mule's parents. Yim, Mule's dead. Someone murdered him.”

Yim felt tears come to her eyes immediately, as if some dark inner fear of her own had been confirmed. Her mind fled immediately to Bone, and his mysterious absence. “Oh my God, why?”
 

Dextra's eyes were red, but her fists were clenched defiantly. She would mourn after she had taken her anger out on the cause of her grief, her face and body seemed to be saying.
 

“Scott lied to us, Yim. He stole something from that old man's shop on Southside, and they think there's some kind of hit man looking for all of us.”

“Looking for
us
? What did
we
do?”

“Some cop talked to Mule's dad. He seems to think that Scott has something that they want back. So they sent this killer to get it. Come on, Yim let's go get Angel. Let's get upstairs and tell everybody. We have to get out of here.”
 

Yim put her hand on Dextra's shoulder. “Dexie, I got separated from Bone yesterday, and he didn't meet me later where we agreed to get together.”

“Maybe something spooked him, and he couldn't meet you. Maybe he's upstairs in the hotel, right now.”