Authors: Peter Leonard
"You're not even listening," Minde said, "are you?"
"I'm watching the show," Samir said. "If you don't mind."
Minde said, "Who's better-looking her or me?"
Samir rubbed his jaw as though he was considering between them and said, "Her."
"Who's got the better bod?"
"Her." He winked at Minde and smiled.
"You son of a bitch. I hope you like sleeping alone."
Samir said, "You have the best body I ever seen and it's real. No silicone." It wasn't true, but he said it to shut her up.
Minde said, "You really think so?" She snuggled up next to him and put her arm over his shoulder.
He'd trade Minde in for a night with Eva Longoria in two seconds. Minde, like most women, was a pain in the ass. Always needed attention like right now, leaning against him, crowding him-four feet of couch next to her. Samir fixed his attention back on the TV. He was pulling on his mustache. He could feel her eyes on him, staring at him.
"Smoothie, you shouldn't do that all the time. It's a bad habit."
Why did she care if he pulled on his mustache? A twenty-two- year-old girl talking to him like he was a kid. Samir said, "Go get me something to drink, a glass of juice."
Minde stared at him the way his mother used to. "You could say please, you know." She got up off the couch sniffing the air. "I smell something burning."
Samir glanced at the fireplace that hadn't been cleaned since last winter. "It's the fireplace. Nothing to worry about."
Minde moved around the couch behind Samir, stopped, bent over and kissed his bald spot. He turned looking up at her. "What're you doing?" She could really be annoying.
"I love that little spot, it's so soft," Minde said.
Samir edged sideways on the couch, watching her over his shoulder not sure what she was going to do next. "I'm dying of thirst here," he said.
Minde stared at him and smiled. "Oh, you big baby…" She danced out of the room, moving to some beat in her head. Always dancing, stretching, where'd she get the energy?
There was a
whoosh
of gas and then a pop as the fire ignited, turning into a long multicolored flame that was yellow on the bottom, turning red and then blue at the tip. Wade turned a dial on the base of the torch, adjusting the flame, shortening it into a thin blue dagger. He wore thick goggles that made him look like a crazed aviator in the dim light. The torch was hooked up to a big industrial tank on wheels. You could weld a skyscraper together with this rig, Wade had said earlier.
Bobby thought it was overkill until Wade melted Samir's front door lock in a few seconds and Bobby pushed the door open and went in. The foyer was dark. He could hear a TV on in the living room thirty feet away. Bobby found the alarm pad right where Karen said it would be, punched in the code, everything going according to plan.
Minde stepped into the darkness of the foyer. A staircase with a gold banister curved up to the second floor. She sniffed the air. Something was definitely burning. "Smoothie, I'm telling you your house is on fire. You better come here."
"Will you get me my juice," Samir yelled.
He sounded mad. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she noticed the front door was open slightly, and there was smoke and this strange smell. Then she saw the cop coming out of the closet. What was going on?
He said, "Ma'am, there was a burglary next door, please stay calm. Did you see or hear anything unusual?" He had a gun in his hand and he was wearing a police jacket and a hat.
Bobby didn't know who was more surprised, him or the girl. The line about the burglary next door had come to him in a flash of inspiration. Sometimes he even surprised himself. He saw Wade come up behind her and put his hand over her mouth and pull her backwards. Somehow she twisted out of Wade's grip and kicked him in the balls with a nifty kung fu move. The blonde assumed the classic karate fighting pose now. Bobby had seen enough chop socky pictures to know she was the real thing. Karen hadn't mentioned a girl karate expert on the payroll. Wade was bent over in pain. Bobby aimed his.32 at her and said, "You're under arrest."
"Bullshit," she said. "You're not cops."
"It really doesn't matter now," Bobby said. "Does it?"
From the living room Samir said, "What the hell is going on out there?"
"Smoothie, they're trying to rob you."
Bobby kept the gun on her, giving her space, watching those feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wade straighten up, step in and hit her in the face, cold-cocked her, and she went down hard on the marble floor.
"Bitch almost put me out of business," Wade said.
Bobby rushed in the living room and met Samir coming across the white shag. Bobby pointed the.32 at him, but he wasn't looking at Bobby. He had his eyes glued to Wade, who appeared with a Remington 870 tactical response shotgun. Looked like the same one Arnold used in
Terminator.
Wade had said it's the weapon designed to get people's attention without firing a shot. He was right. Samir stopped in his tracks.
"Police," Wade said. "Get the fuck down," taking charge.
Samir seemed stunned, he stood there frozen just staring until Wade racked the slide and got his attention. He got down on his stomach on the pure white carpeting, eyes searching for Wade, who moved behind him out of sight.
"Think you can handle it from here?" Wade said to Bobby. He was pissed. "Or do I have to do everything?"
"Whoever you are," Samir said, looking up from the floor, "you better hope I don't find you."
Wade stepped over to him and jammed the barrel end of the shotgun against his cheek. "You threatenin' me, Abdul?" Wade kicked him in the ribs and Samir grunted. Wade kicked him in the face and rocked his head.
Karen came in the room and said, "What are you doing?" She stepped between Wade and Samir, aiming her Smith & Wesson.357 Airweight at Wade's chest. "I told you and we agreed, no one was supposed to get hurt."
"He asked for it," Wade said, on the defensive.
Samir was moaning and his face was a mess, bruised, swelling up and bleeding from Wade's steel-tipped biker boots. Karen got on her knees and rolled Samir on his back and put a pillow from the couch under his head. He was out, unconscious. He needed a doctor. She'd have to call EMS.
Karen was watching Bobby roll the safe out of Samir's office when she heard the shotgun blast and it startled her it was so loud. She ran down the hall to the kitchen, and looked in the doorway and all she saw was blood, spatters of it on the white walls and white tile floor and even on the ceiling. More blood was covering the crumpled figure of a man on the floor, she now recognized as Yalda, the cook, his white shirt splotched with red. Wade was standing there with the shotgun, a crazed look on his face, aiming at Ricky and a young guy she didn't recognize. They were lying on the floor, and their hands and feet were duct-taped together.
Bobby came in behind her and squeezed through the doorway into the kitchen. "We've got to get out of here," he said to Wade.
Wade glanced at him and said, "They know what I look like." He aimed the shotgun at Ricky on the floor.
"Be cool," Bobby said. "I need your help in the other room."
Wade lowered the shotgun and Bobby and Lloyd escorted him into the foyer where the safe was. It was a tense moment, she could see Wade, the psycho, shooting everyone, including them.
"What did I say? Jesus, what's the one thing I told you not to do?" Karen said, adrenaline still pumping. She was glancing over her shoulder at Wade in the back seat behind Bobby. They were moving down Samir's driveway, heading for the street.
Wade said, "What the fuck do you know about it?"
"I know the police are going to be involved now, you dipstick." She was trying to get her money back and now she was involved in a murder, two, if Samir didn't make it.
"I didn't have a choice." Wade glanced at Lloyd. "Tell her."
"He pulled a gun," Lloyd said.
"What's done is done," Bobby said. "Don't worry about something you can't do anything about."
"Thanks for the inspiring words," Karen said. "I'll try to remember that when the police come looking for me."
They'd taken off the police hats and jackets and stuffed them in a plastic bag that Lloyd threw out the window. What kind of bonehead move was that? Karen lit a cigarette. She took a right on
Coolidge. The safe shifted and rolled with a
bang
, crashing against the opposite side of the minivan. She glanced in the rearview mirror at Lloyd. "I thought you had that thing tied down." She looked through the windshield, eyes back on the road, trying to calm down. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.
O'Clair smelled kitty litter and sneezed as he walked in the apartment.
Megan said, "God bless you."
O'Clair hated cats. He was also allergic to them. In a few minutes his eyes would start to itch and his nose would run. A strawberry blond cat appeared, rubbing against his leg. He could hear music coming from another room, nothing familiar, some kind of rock tune.
"That's Snickers. He's saying hello. Aren't you, boy?" Megan bent over when she talked to the cat, getting closer to it. "He's a short-haired Exotic, and about the nicest little guy in the whole world. Yes, him is." Megan straightened up, her gaze still on the cat. "This is Detective… what'd you say your name was?"
"Conlin," O'Clair said, picturing the square jaw and flattop haircut of his first sergeant. He flashed a silver badge at her, a real one he'd taken from a detective he didn't like before he was kicked out of the department, figuring it might come in handy and it had. The little blonde surprised him by asking what it was made out of.
O'Clair said, "What?"
She said, "You know, is it metal or plastic?"
"Metal." What kind of question was that?
He'd gotten a list of incoming calls to Bobby's apartment from a cop he'd had a fling with, who was now a detective on the Violent Crimes Task Force. Her name was Pam Bond. Six out of his last ten calls were from Megan Freels, the cashier who worked at the MGM and lived at the Lafayette Apartments downtown. The other calls were from a phone number in Montreal. O'Clair tried it and a voice answered speaking French and he hung up.
"The detective's here to ask us some questions," Megan said. And then to O'Clair, "Come on in and sit down."
She led him into a good-size living room with a hardwood floor and a great view of downtown Detroit, and the city of Windsor, Ontario, across the river. Megan went to the stereo turned the music down. She was a hot little number.
O'Clair said, "Who's that?"
"Guided by Voices," Megan said.
O'Clair said, "Where're they from?" He'd never heard of them.
"I think, Ohio," Megan said. "The lead singer was a schoolteacher. He drinks like twenty beers during a show. Best live band I've ever seen, but they broke up."
He rubbed his right eye. He could feel it swelling up and itching like crazy.
"Do you have something in your eye? I've got drops if you need them."
"It's all right," O'Clair said, but it wasn't. He didn't have much time.
"I hope you're not allergic to Snickers." Megan sat in a worn leather chair with her back to the wall.
O'Clair took the couch. "Nice view," he said. "Detroit doesn't look so bad from this angle. How long have you lived here?"
"I moved in when I got the casino job. So I guess about a year and a half."
Snickers walked across the floor in front of O'Clair and jumped into Megan's lap. Her eyes lit up. "Well, look who wants some attention." Megan stroked the cat and hugged it.