Hit on the House (25 page)

“Do me a favor? You mean Tupman and Conover? That was a favor to me?”

“Yeah, sure.” Lande nodded his head repeatedly, as if to convince himself.

“That wasn't a favor to me,” Mulheisen said, his face cruel. “You had to take them down. They knew you had the money. They were under pressure from Carmine. If you didn't get them, they'd get you now that you didn't have Sid to protect you. Why, for all I know, Sid was planning to get rid of all of you, clean house . . . Wasn't Hal his friend, his good buddy? He sure hung around a lot, for a hired killer.”

“Hal?” Lande was puzzled momentarily, then his eyes grew wide. “You mean the guy at the gate? The one who popped Sid ‘n’ Mickey?” Lande stared, then shook his head. “No, no. He wasn't a friend of Sid's. I was Sid's pal. I seen the guy pop Sid . . . I seen him in the lockup, later! I hada get the hell oudda there. Those guys, they got secret ways a doin’ ya. I wasn't sure if he seen me.”

Mulheisen sensed he had stumbled onto something. He had to go with it. “Sure, Hal took Sid down. He was probably supposed to take you down, too, but you hid, and he didn't see you. Then you ran, only the Big Four swept you up. So Sid never told you about Hal? Didn't he tell you he was putting a contract out on Tupman and Conover? No. He wouldn't, even though you were his bosom buddy—because he'd also put a contract on you. You must have known it—maybe not consciously, maybe it was too hard to take—but you knew you had to take down Frosty and Billy. Without Sid to keep them off, they'd want the money, all of it. That's the way it went, isn't it? You were betrayed by your pal, Sid, as usual. Everything was going to hell in a hand basket—Sid gone, Bonny gone. You're left with all the work, left with all the money, too, of course, and left with Tupman and Conover and Carmine breathing down your neck.”

“Carmine,” Lande said bitterly, “I should of blasted him and that fuckin’ Fat Man. You know what they did? Lissena this, this is how they jerk ya ‘roun’. Carmine calls me in . . . ack'shly, the Fat Man comes to
get me one day with a coupla goons. ‘Carmine wants to talk to ya.
^;
We go down there, to the potato chip fact'ry, an’ we wait. After a while the door opens to Carmine's office, and Bonny comes out with Carmine, only he steers her out the side door, so she don't see me waitin’ with the Fat Man. Her hair is mussed up an’ her lipstick's smeared. I don't know what Carmine thinks I'll think . . . Maybe I'm s'posed ta think Bonny's puttin’ out for him. Maybe he just wants to show me that he can get to me through Bonny . . . I don't know. But I know Bonny. She wouldn't put out for Carmine.

“Anyways, he gets me in the office. He don't say nothin’ about Bon, like she was never there, but we both know, y'know. All he talks about is Sid ‘n’ Frosty ‘n’ Billy. He says I should wise up. He knows all about Sid ‘n’ Frosty ‘n’ Billy ‘n’ me. He wants his money back. He's talkin’ about ten mil. I hada laugh, but not out loud. He didn’ know nothin’. I knew he didn’, but I wasn't sure about Frosty ‘n’ Billy. They might spill it. An’ I hada perteck Bon.”

“So what did you tell Carmine?”

“I tol’ him I didn’ know nothin’ about Sid's deal with Frosty ‘n’ Billy. I didn’ even know them. Which I don't, hardly—I didn’ do any business with them, Sid hanneled that. I tol’ Carmine what he already must've knew—I hada deal with Sid to build this golf resort in the islands. Ever'body knew about that. An’ I bitched about now I was stuck with it, what with Sid gone, an’ I was gonna haveta either bail out or get some new backers. Hell, I ast him to come in with me!” Lande laughed. “He said he'd think about it.”

“Why didn't you go after Carmine?” Mulheisen asked.

“Go after Carmine? Are you nuts? Well, maybe I shoulda . . . but how? You can't get close to them big shots. An’ if you did, you'd have the whole mob after ya. Frosty ‘n’ Billy, they don't give a shit. You even said so in the rest'raunt that night. It'd be better for ever'body, you said. I could do you a favor, an’ then we'd be frien's. Bonny liked you. I didn’ even mind. Anybody else, even Carmine, I'd a popped him. But I could tell you really liked Bon . . . not just after her ass. It was better for ever'body, Mul.”

The maelstrom of this mind was too much for Mulheisen. He didn't think there was any way of combing out this snarl of lies and
hatreds, of fears and rages and self-deceit. Lande had provided himself with plenty of justifications for killing; if one didn't fly, he'd just put up another. Mulheisen supposed that simple rage and fear at the collapse of his wonderful plans, especially in terms of Bonny's illness and subsequent death, had been enough. He sighed and looked into his cup, then drained it. He poured himself another and held out the bottle to Lande. Lande came forward and took it, still holding the .45 at the ready.

“You see, Mul,” he said, putting the bottle down after a long draft, “I'm yer pal. It's funny, eh? You lookin’ out fer me an’ me lookin’ out fer you! That's what frien's are!”

Mulheisen sat back and stared, then he began to laugh—not a great, mirthful laugh but more of a quiet, rueful laugh. “What a life,” he said.

Lande laughed, too, but it got out of control and ended in a sob. “You got that right, Mul. What a fuckin’ life. An’ without Bon it ain't worth shit. Am I right? Hunh? Am I? Who needs it? C'mon Mul, one last drink, right?” He held up the bottle, toasting them.

Mulheisen lifted the cup. Why not, he thought. Could be the last one. He started to put it down but decided to drain it. He was reminded of something his father used to say, a kind of poem, or was it a song?—“When it seems life's joy is up, drain the sweetness from the cup.” Or something like that. He wasn't sure he'd got it right. He set the cup down.

Lande drank and set the bottle on the table. His eyes glittered. “I never knew no one like her, Mul. D'jou? She was beautiful, wan't she? I mean, she was really a fine wooman. Right? She wan't no hooer, not really. An’ she loved me.” He gestured with the gun, soliciting a response. “Right? Am I right?”

“She was fine, Gene,” Mulheisen said. “She was beautiful. She was a good woman. The best. And she loved you.”

Lande nodded furiously. “Right, right, right. Damn right! You know what, Mul? She was the on'y one who ever loved Eugene Lande. You know that?”

Mulheisen nodded, watching.

Eyes blazing, Lande raised the gun and said, “Good-bye, Mul. You were a good man.” Then he stuck the gun into his mouth and pulled
the trigger. His face seemed to explode, and the back of his head flew, spattering brains and blood against the wall behind him.

Mulheisen leapt to his feet, his mouth open in shock. Lande's body sprawled against the wall. For a moment he couldn't register what had happened. He rubbed his forehead, dazed. Then he picked up the bottle and walked outside. In the light from the doorway he leaned against a tree with an outstretched hand and gulped the fresh air. He staggered off a ways and found he had a tremendous urge to piss. He unzipped and pissed into the dark grass. Then he drank from the bottle. He zipped up and drank again. The bottle was empty. He reared back and hurled it up into the night, at the tiny, blurry stars. It rattled off some tree limbs, then fell to the soft earth with a thump. The bird he'd heard earlier was making the same weird
beenp
. Mulheisen noticed his .38 lying on the ground. He picked it up and holstered it, then went into the shed. The boxes of computers were there, stacked neatly. There were also a half-dozen boxes bearing well-known liquor labels and closed up in the familiar flap-over-flap tuck that people use when packing, say, books for moving. Mulheisen opened one. It was full of old newspapers. He opened the rest. They were all full of newspapers. He was tired. He sat down on the open tailgate of the little pickup truck and waited for Jimmy.

Time In

“G
etting in is not the problem,” Joe said. “It's getting out. The Greeks got into Troy, but they knew they were going to fight their way out. You don't want to fight your way out. Now I could dress up like some crazy sculptor . . . You know—beard, long hair, dark glasses, maybe wear a long army-surplus coat, . . . spray-paint you nude with, say, bronze paint-
Helen of Troy
-and wheel you into the office on a dolly . . .”

They both erupted in laughter. They were, as it happened, quite nude, and they did, in fact, resemble Greek statuary—of a particularly flexible, plastic kind.

A few hours later Joe sat up in Helen's bed and snapped his fingers. “Got it,” he said.

He explained the whole thing at length to Helen, and she accepted the plan enthusiastically. He warned, “It's dangerous, but you can do it. The thing is—they'll be angry and upset, not thinking rationally. You'll be in a situation that you know, that you've prepared for. You stay calm and go with it. Otherwise . . .”—he smiled sadly—“if I see it isn't going right, I'll have to leave. It's your show.”

“Joe, I can do it. Don't worry about me.” She kissed him eagerly, clinging like a child and laughing wildly.

They were at Helen's apartment in Bloomfield Hills. Over the following days they rehearsed the show, as Joe called it, until Helen was perfect. During the day, while Helen was at work—putting together a
deal to sell her share of Cadillac Communications Consultants to her partner—Joe set about making the necessary preparations. This included renting a small van and shopping in a secondhand clothing store.

One afternoon, as an idle gesture to his irrepressible curiosity, Joe drove out to Lande's golf course. Lande was not in, so naturally he took a look around. There was nothing to see in the clubhouse. On his way back to town, however, almost by accident he noticed the little road to the maintenance building. Someone had left the gate open—in a hurry, he supposed. He drove in. There was nobody in the maintenance building, but there were some interesting boxes stacked up, as if someone were moving. He couldn't resist a peek. The goods were just sitting there, already packed in boxes.

That's the way it goes sometimes, he told himself. You bust your butt to find the goods, and then—'voila! He started to load the boxes into the van, but then it occurred to him that to do so might not be wise. He didn't know anything about this Lande except what he'd been told, but he couldn't imagine that he was the sort of fellow who wouldn't compulsively check on his goods, probably every time he went in or out. If Lande discovered he'd been robbed, it might complicate Joe and Helen's plans. He dumped Lande's money in the van—he figured he could repack it later—and then he refilled the boxes with newspaper from a nearby bin and restacked the boxes as before. That ought to allay suspicion for a while, he thought, and left whistling.

“W
hat foresight,” Joe said at breakfast the following morning. He pointed to the headline:
MYSTERY MOB FIGURE DIES, MILLIONS MISSING.
“That ingenious sleuth, our old pal Mulheisen, has once again solved the crime,” Joe said. “They say this Lande was implicated in the Tupman and Conover shootings. Hmmm.”

Helen didn't believe it. “It's all Carmine,” she insisted. “He skates again.”

Joe lowered the paper and gazed at her. She was wearing her wig and was dressed for work, but she looked mean. She was going to wrap up her business today.

“But not for long,” Joe said. That got a smile from her.

An hour later the phone rang. Joe ignored it until he heard Helen's voice on the answering machine: “Joe, pick up.” Mulheisen had just called, she said. He wanted to talk to her about Lande and other matters. “I put him off until tomorrow morning,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Don't go,” Joe said. “With any luck we'll be out of town.”

He hung up and went out for a walk. The Detroit Zoo wasn't far. He wandered around the grounds, gazing idly at the caged animals. The serpent house intrigued him, particularly a glassed-in cage that revealed a tree full of pythons. He dodged the kids and wrinkled his nose at the smell, but mainly he pondered his present course of action.

What he was about to do with Helen precluded any notion of carrying out the contract with the Fat Man. It was too bad. Joe had never broken a contract before, but this seemed like a good time to make an exception.

Oh, be honest, he thought, almost every contract has been broken in some sense. A contract has always required bending or amending because of circumstances one couldn't control. This was just the first time he'd decided on his own to break a contract without there being truly mitigating circumstances. It was hard to give up the money once it was in your possession.

He knew the Fat Man and Carmine would be getting antsy. They could read the papers, too. If Lande hadn't had the money, where was it? They would start looking for Joe soon.

He thought about giving them the money—well, some of it, maybe even most of it. That would probably be the smartest thing to do. Then he thought about Helen, about that lithe body, that smooth little head. She was going to be trouble, he knew—he had a curious, bleak feeling in his gut. She could blow his whole life to smithereens. But, nanh, it wouldn't be that bad. It'd be fine. They'd work it out.

But this was definitely a burning of bridges. If he had mused once that he could never go back to Iowa City, well, it was certain that this side of the Missouri River would soon no longer be an appropriate environment for him. He felt no remorse. He'd never liked it in Detroit, even when he'd done well. This time he'd done better.

* * *

A
bout midmorning the long brown Cadillac cruised carefully down the narrow side street. It was hundreds of yards from the Krispee Chips factory when, as Carmine's driver had long dreaded, some idiot pulled out of a parking place and the driver had to swerve to avoid him. There was no room. The limo crashed into another parked car, and the idiot halted, blocking the street. Both the driver and the burly bodyguard piled out, angry as hornets. They were confronted by a little guy in a fedora, an old, pin-striped suit, and a full-head rubber Mickey Mouse mask.

The mouse—or the rat, as it were—swung up a sawed-off shotgun. It was over in less than five seconds. Then the rat climbed into the front of the limo and leaned over the back. The gun boomed again and again.

The rat ran down the street in the direction from which the limo had come and jumped into a waiting van. Helen stripped off the mask and flung it into the back, among her luggage and Joe's, which included three large, brand-new duffel bags that were stuffed full. Joe drove them swiftly away.

“My god, I can't hear!” she yelled, holding her hands over her ears. Her clothes were flecked with blood. Joe drove calmly and carefully down the long street and turned onto Jefferson, headed for the Fisher Freeway. He glanced at the woman with concern. Her eyes were wild, and her tiny patch of hair was matted with perspiration, but she was grinning.

“It was perfect!” she shouted. “The little bastard was all squinched up on the floor. I practically had to crawl over the front seat to get him. It was incredible. The noise . . . My ears are ringing! Did you say something, darling?”

Joe laughed and stopped for a light. He rubbed her head gleefully and hugged her. The light changed, and he got into the right lane to take the freeway exit, for their new life.

* * *

M
ulheisen was still ten minutes away from Tiger Stadium when he heard the announcer say, “Here's the pitch to Phillips . . . He swings . . . and there's a drive to left field . . . It could be . . . It's hooking . . . It hits the foul pole—deflected into . . . It's a home run! It's out of here folks! The Yankee third base coach is arguing, but he won't win this one . . . And the Tigers lead one to nothing in the bottom of the first! That was . . . whataya think, George? An oh-and-two pitch, looked like a curve ball that didn't curve.” And George readily agreed, “Inside and low, but it didn't really break, Al. Not a bad pitch on oh-and-two, but Phillips is one of these guys who just won't take a pitch.”

“Crap!” Mulheisen snorted. He reckoned it was the only home run he would have had a chance to see off Phillips's bat all summer. But he wasn't really annoyed. What the hell—he was going to opening day. It was fine weather, a little cool, but no clouds. He was determined to think about nothing but baseball today. Even Helen's failure to show for their appointment didn't bother him. He'd checked with her office, and they said she was no longer with CCC. That puzzled him, but he refused to worry about it. Tomorrow.

He wheeled into the parking lot, where a skinny dark man with a tall, sloping forehead frantically waved him away until he saw who it was. “Hey, Fang!” the man yelled, his grin exposing several gaps in an array of otherwise awful teeth, “d'jou hear that! Phillips! Cat got some power, eh?”

Mulheisen exposed his own fangs and said, “That you, Malfitan? Park it, but don't hide it. . . and don't throw a party in it either.” Then he sprinted away.

Steeple Head yelled after him, “Ah'mo knock off a piece a ass in the backseat, you jive honky,” but Mulheisen was gone. He flipped his badge at the gate and ran in, even though he had a ticket he'd paid for well in advance. He huffed up the ramp to the grandstand over the Tiger dugout and grabbed a Stroh's beer off a vendor as he dropped down the steps to the row where his reserved seat was located. Naturally some clown was already sitting in the seat, but he jumped up and vanished when Mulheisen waved him away.

An overlarge fellow in a Tiger uniform stood at the plate, patiently
waving a bat like a wand as the Yankee pitcher started his motion. The runner on first was Trammell, and he took off with the pitch. It was a fatal fastball, and the batter turned on it like a cyclone. The ball arced up, up, up, up and then began to plane out toward the upper deck in left field.

Mulheisen didn't sit down. With a roar the rest of the fans rose to join him as the tiny white pellet crashed into a stanchion, then deflected over the roof toward Cherry Street.

“Cess-ill!” the people screamed over and over, and Mulheisen added his voice.

After that they all settled down to that most satisfying of spectacles, a home-team slaughter. By the sixth inning, when the score was nine-zip, they were all pretty sloshed and hilarious, singing songs and embracing each other whenever Trammell, or Whitaker, or the Kid on the Korner snapped a double to the wall or came up with the ball deep in the hole and lasered a Yankee runner out.

“Is this great, or what!” a vendor yelled. He almost gave away beer. The fans, including a fine-looking woman in section 27, sprawled in the sun and took off their shirts. The ushers got the woman to cover up before any trouble ensued, but the crowd just laughed.

Oh, hell, yes, Detroit was happy. The Tigers were back. It was spring. Life had begun again.

During the seventh-inning stretch a cop came up to Mulheisen at the hotdog counter and said, “Mul, didja hear about Carmine? The alley sweeper got him!”

Mulheisen paused in his glee and said, “No way. Where?”

“On the street, just outside the Krispee plant,” said the cop, grinning.

“They get the guy?” Mulheisen asked, chomping into the mus- tardy dog.

“It was a rat,” the cop said. “An alley rat. Got clean away.”

Mulheisen went back to his seat, a little mystified but determined not to think about it. Today was opening day. He'd deal with the homicide later, along with the rest of the laborious cleanup of the Big Sid case. Right now Cecil was stepping into the batter's box . . . One out and the bases loaded . . . They'd have to pitch to him.

* * *

T
he following day Mulheisen and Jimmy drove down to the Harbor Bar. They were dressed in jeans and light jackets and they were talking about boats. Jimmy was thinking about buying, and Mulheisen, who had owned both a gaff-rigged catboat and a powerboat at different times, was giving advice. He also carried a couple of sealed plastic boxes, a little larger than the boxes that might contain twenty-five Corona cigars. He had picked them up from the crematorium the day before.

“Any word on Helen Sedlacek?” Mulheisen asked Jimmy as they walked into the bar. They ordered beers and sat down by a window that looked onto a dock where pleasure boats were tied up.

“I talked to Roman,” Jimmy said. “He hasn't seen her lately, he says. And her home phone has been disconnected.”

Mulheisen thought about this. “Another woman flown?” He glanced out the window and noticed a twenty-five-foot cabin cruiser drawn up at the dock. The name on the stern was
Serb-A-Rite
. A woman was loading some bags off the dock, onto the deck, probably stocking up on beer. She was barefoot, wearing shorts and a sweater. She was tall and sturdily built, but she carried herself in a guarded way. Nice looking but not beautiful. Rather strong features. Sunglasses.

“Speaking of flown women,” Mulheisen said. “I didn't even have to ask directions.” He handed the boxes to Jimmy and walked out onto the catwalk and squatted down next to the boat. The woman looked up at him.