Sidewalk saint, p.11
Sidewalk Saint, page 11
Something was wrong with Roan’s situation. Maybe the story that Bobby had made up when he was pretending to be Roan was a little accurate. Maybe when Roan learned that the Lamberts had his kid, he also learned that they were working with the Delany family. Retrial or not, he had to get out. He had to find Etta. But the Lamberts heard that Roan busted out and panicked, was that it? Was that why they moved out of their house so fast?
I stood up from my desk, got Bobby’s gun out of my suit coat and put it in a drawer. Then I checked my own Colt Defender, a nervous habit.
It was ironic, really, that I had a gun at all. Never owned one when I was a crook in Brooklyn. And in Brooklyn my father, a guy who died when I was a baby, was a well-respected member of The Combination before his untimely death as a result of payback-ignition problems. His car blew up. Twice in three seconds. They wanted him to be really dead. My point is that I was quite familiar with the activities of certain families in certain businesses. All that nefarious influence and not one pistol in New York State. I had to go straight and work for children before firearms became a necessary thing.
That’s what I mean about irony.
My next stop had to be Yudda’s, and I didn’t like it. Before that day, I’d come to think of Yudda as a friend. I didn’t care for the idea that he’d ratted me out. And put Etta in danger. It was obvious that I had to find out what he was doing. Yudda knew the real father, and almost certainly knew more about the whole business than he’d let on. I figured he’d get me to Roan, or at least point me in the right direction. With the right inducement. So, all I had to do was come up with something that would convince Yudda to be honest with me, for a change.
If I hauled out my gun, he’d get one of his and things would get messy. If I threatened him with anything legal, he’d just laugh. What would get him on my side, so he’d want to tell me what I had to know?
NINETEEN
Twenty minutes later I was sitting at the bar in Yudda’s. The stool was uncomfortable, the place smelled funny, and Yudda was nervous. Maybe that was because I let my suit coat fall open so that he could see I had my Colt in a shoulder holster.
‘I got nothing ready yet,’ he muttered, ‘if you’re here for a bite to eat. If you’re here to shoot me, go ahead. It couldn’t make me feel any worse than I do now.’
I leaned forward and got eye contact. ‘About five pounds of ground fish,’ I began, ‘and two medium onions, peeled and ground.’
He stared. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m giving you a secret more closely guarded than the nuclear codes,’ I said. ‘It’s my Aunt Shayna’s recipe for gefilte fish.’
He blinked. There may even have been a tear in his eye. ‘How long I been asking you about that gefilte fish?’
‘As long as you’ve known me.’
‘So, after all this bullshit, why you give it to me now?’
‘Because I want something from you in return,’ I said.
‘I probably don’t have as much money as you think I do,’ he told me.
‘Yeah, I want to know about Roan.’ I sat up. ‘I want to know what could possibly make you rat me out. Me? I think I saved your life, like, three times already.’
‘You ain’t believe me when I told you I was under maybe three warrants in New Orleans?’
‘I thought you were being colorful.’
‘I got some ex-wife trouble,’ he said. ‘I got a drug conviction that I jumped bail. And it might be a murder rap I’m in on.’
‘And?’ I knew that wasn’t everything.
‘And,’ he sighed, ‘there’s some guys who want me to give a whole lot of their product back, which I ain’t got because I sold it to get here. To Fry’s Bay.’
‘Cops, courts, and cons.’ I nodded. ‘All three after you.’
‘These goons come into town and say to me, like, “We knock you on the head, ship you back to New Orleans in a fish crate, let the vultures pick at the bones.” And plus which: Mordecai!’
‘Yeah, there’s a lot of talk about him. But he’s in the hospital, bad off. The Lamberts hit him with their car. Have you seen him?’
‘No! I never saw him, and I hope to God I never do.’ Yudda started to sweat. ‘You know anything about the guy?’
I shook my head because I wanted him to keep talking.
‘He peeled a guy’s skin off in front of the guy’s whole family. Slow! They say the guy lived for, like, two days. He used the skin to make a waste basket and a couple of seat covers, for God’s sake!’
I nodded. What I didn’t say was that at least part of his story was actually about Ed Gein, a serial killer from Wisconsin. Famous case. Basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho.
But Yudda was genuinely scared. He was in real trouble.
All I said was, ‘Don’t care. Tell me about Roan.’
‘What do you want to know? He’s a nice guy with a swell kid who got a wrong deal.’
‘No,’ I interrupted. ‘I want to know where he is now.’
Yudda squinted. ‘In prison. I thought you’d know that.’
He seemed genuine. Bobby, the guy who had pretended to be Roan, hadn’t told Yudda anything.
‘I’m serious, Foggy,’ Yudda went on. ‘These guys, they threatened to shoot me, to send me back to New Orleans in a box – all kinds of crap. You know I’m on your side.’
I knew the only side Yudda was truly on was Yudda’s. But his eyes were sad, and his voice was shaky, so I let him off the hook.
‘Two tablespoons of kosher salt,’ I told him, ‘five eggs, three tablespoons of water, and at least a cup of sugar.’
He nodded. I knew he was writing it down in his brain.
‘What about the stock?’ he asked.
‘I was getting to that,’ I said. ‘Sixteen cups of water, four teaspoons of kosher salt, a half a cup of sugar, two onions, and two carrots.’
‘I put the stock in a pot, roll the fish into balls, and simmer for, what? About an hour?’ He bit his lower lip. ‘You’re leaving something out. This ain’t so very special.’
‘There was a guy who lived across the hall from us when I was a kid,’ I said. ‘He was from, like, someplace in India. Anyway, he introduced my aunt to curry. So. In the fish there’s fenugreek. In the stock there’s cardamom pods.’
He made a face. ‘No. That’s not right.’
‘It’s amazing.’
‘Naw.’ He continued to protest. ‘It’s not even Jewish!’
‘You may be interested to know,’ I told him, ‘that Yemenite Jews believe fenugreek is the Talmudic spice rubia. You use it the first night of Rosh Hashanah.’
‘You’re making that up.’
‘So now tell me more about Roan.’
He was suspicious of my ethnic history lesson, but he told me about Roan anyway. Seems he and Roan were in the weed trade from Baton Rouge to New Orleans for several years. Completely benign enterprise that got out of hand when larger drug cartels started horning in. Roan wanted out. He backed away, and nobody heard from him for a while. He started a family. He had a kid. Then his wife got sick. Then she died. Then Roan killed the doctor and went to prison, where, as far as Yudda knew, he was still incarcerated. Not really much of a story. When the Canadians came to town, they threatened Yudda with all kinds of bodily harm. He found it especially cruel to threaten him with his ex-wife, and especially weird that Bobby had pretended to be Roan in order to get me involved in the whole mess. He looked down, and then he apologized.
In short, he had no choice but to rat me out, and he didn’t know as much about Roan as I had hoped.
Still, something was lurking. I could feel it. Nobody had heard from Roan for a while, he’d said. What did that mean? And what about Roan’s trial? If he’d had drug money squirrelled away, he would have gotten a lawyer smart enough to get the charges bumped down at least a little, given the circumstances. Unless the doctor was connected to bigger fish. And what about Roan busting out of jail and then disappearing?
So, while Yudda’s story hadn’t helped me out as much as I’d thought it would, my brain was lurching forward.
I thought maybe I should find out more about the murder of Dr Bainbridge.
I got off the stool and tapped the bar. ‘I’m expecting gefilte fish the next time I come in here.’
‘Where am I gonna get fenugreek and cardamom?’
‘Long-distance call to Kalustyan’s on Lexington Avenue,’ I said. ‘Put in a rush order. Tell him Shayna sent you. Ought to have it by the end of the week.’
I didn’t turn around when I was walking out, but I could hear Yudda dial the phone.
TWENTY
Dr Adam Bainbridge made a lot of money selling his cancer cure. That’s the first thing I found out. He had nearly two million dollars in the bank when he was killed. No heirs, no will. The second thing I found out was that the cancer cure was a repackaged patent medicine from the nineteenth century, Dr Goodheart’s Brilliant Curative. It was a mixture of carbonated water, cane sugar, and Cannabis Indica, weed with a high level of THC. Which was why patients thought they were getting better. They felt better. Right up until the time they died. Dr Bainbridge was, as it turned out, a descendant of Amelia Drake, the inventor of the Brilliant Curative. Right after that I found out that his medical degree was as worthless as his medicine. Guttenberg University of Stuttgart didn’t exist. Gave me a lot of faith in the medical establishment. Guy could make up a degree, fake a medicine, kill a bunch of people, and make a couple million dollars. God bless America. And the fact that I could find all that out from just a couple hours’ worth of phone calls and a little library research only reinforced my disdain for the establishment. Why hadn’t anybody else bothered to check on the guy the way I had? I ended up agreeing with Maggie Redhawk that Roan deserved a medal, not jail time, for killing the guy.
My next step was a mystery even to me. No idea why I decided I had to go to Cross City Correctional to see what I could see about Roan’s time there. And about his escape from the place. Sometimes you had to follow a hunch. And I had a fairly insistent one about Roan’s incarceration.
My assumption had been that he busted out to be with his kid. But that idea had come mostly from Bobby, the fake Roan. And he’d only given that impression because he wanted to find Etta and learn her secret.
What if, no matter what Etta thought, Roan was out for other reasons? Like, for example, revenge on the guys that put him in Cross City in the first place. There was a place in my old neighborhood that only played old movies. I always liked The Count of Monte Cristo. There was a guy who earned his revenge. What if that was Roan?
And while I was at it, I decided to pay a visit to my new friend Elvin in Lake City. I was curious to know how the Lamberts got their claws on Etta; what their connections were. They’d tried to give me the impression that they were innocents afraid of the bad men, but they certainly did their best to run over Mordecai when they had the chance. Like they knew who he was, and what kind of trouble they were in.
In short, I was going to have to drive to Lake City again.
The T-Bird was parked by the docks. The sun had set, and the moon was up. I realized I had to wait until morning. Elvin’s office would be closed, and the correctional facility wouldn’t be admitting visitors. So maybe a good night’s sleep and an early start were in order.
But when I pulled into the parking lot at my apartment, there were lights on in my place. Never a good sign, because I always turn them off. Light equals heat, and Florida’s hot enough all by itself.
I eased out of the car and around the building. Thought I might get a peek in the sliding doors in back. When I did, I was a little surprised. John Horse waved, and Etta started laughing.
I tugged on the sliding door and shook my head.
‘You have to stop moving the kid around like this,’ I said to John Horse. ‘She needs a stable environment.’
‘I know,’ he agreed.
Etta was still laughing a little. ‘He said you’d come around back. Then he heard your car, and he said we should go into the kitchen and wait for you to come to the back door. He knows everything.’
‘Yeah,’ I told her. ‘He’s a riot.’
‘We were halfway back to the swamp when she said something.’ John Horse looked down.
How he could wear a flannel shirt and jeans all the time in Florida was a mystery. But I knew he felt the same about my wearing a suit, so we’d quit talking about it a while back.
‘What did she say?’ I asked him.
‘I told him that the Lamberts know something,’ Etta said. ‘Something about what I know that I don’t remember. The thing. The reason these guys are after me.’
‘Where are they?’ John Horse asked.
I stared. ‘They ran over a guy and then beat it out of town.’
‘You should find them,’ he told me.
I shook my head. ‘You could have delivered Etta to your house, put ten or fifty of your guys around her, and she’d be safe now. Then you could have come here to tell me this. Why did you bring her here? Why did you really come back to town?’
‘Someone in my camp is working with the gangsters,’ he said softly. ‘I realized that a little too late.’
I took in a deep breath. I’d wondered how so many urban criminals had found the Seminole camp way in the middle of the swamp. Although it was hard to believe that any Seminole would even know New York gangsters, let alone work with them.
‘You think she’s safer with me?’ I asked.
‘I think it’s harder to hit a moving target,’ he said. ‘You should take her with you when you go to Lake City tomorrow.’
‘No,’ I protested. ‘And what makes you think I’m going to Lake City?’
He just smiled. How he knew that I was planning to do that was completely without explanation. He’d pulled off some pretty spectacular tricks before, but this was the biggest in a while.
‘Why are we going to Lake City?’ Etta wanted to know.
‘I have to visit my new friend Elvin,’ I began.
‘Elvin! I love him.’ She looked at John Horse. ‘He told me all about Foggy. And he knew that the adoption with the Lamberts was hinky.’
‘He did,’ I agreed. ‘And I want to find out more about that.’
I looked around.
‘Where’s the dog?’
‘I sent him to the camp,’ John Horse said. ‘He wanted to be outside.’
I thought there was more to it than that from the way he said it, but I let it go.
‘So, look,’ I said to Etta. ‘After we see Elvin, I’m going over to the prison where your father stayed. Until he broke out to find you. Are you up for that?’
‘That’ll be weird,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen a prison before.’
‘Good,’ John Horse concluded. ‘It’s all settled. I’ll wait here in your house, Foggy.’
I studied his face. ‘Why would you do that?’
He wouldn’t look me in the eye. ‘It’s for the best.’
I’d learned a long time before to trust John Horse, especially when he wouldn’t look you in the eye.
‘OK.’ I yawned a little on purpose. ‘I’m going to sleep now. Etta, you take the sofa. John Horse, I have your sleeping bag from the other times …’
‘Already got it out,’ he said, pointing toward the living room. ‘And blankets for the sofa. You go on to bed.’
I nodded, heading for the bedroom. ‘We’ll get a very early start in the morning.’
TWENTY-ONE
Six hours later, I woke up to the smell of coffee. They were trying to be quiet in the kitchen, but sometimes that only made every little noise louder. Like a spoon clinking in a cup, or a cupboard door closing. So, I got up. Shower, shave, and a sporty gaberdine suit later, I was at the table with them.
Etta stared. ‘Why do you wear a suit? I mean, if you don’t have to.’
I sat and sipped a little coffee before I answered. ‘I was partly raised by a guy who told me that a suit equals authority. You wear a cheesy shirt and jeans, that’s who people think you are. It’s a superficial world. Take, for instance, your T-shirt.’
She was wearing a T-shirt with a peace sign on it. ‘What about it?’ she asked me. ‘It belonged to my mom.’
‘But that’s not what people see,’ I told her. ‘They see a kid wearing a shirt that’s ten years too late.’
‘And what does that make them think?’ John Horse butted in. ‘These people?’
‘Makes them dismiss her.’ I sipped. ‘People are always looking for the stupid visual cue, something that helps them make a decision about you, so they can move on.’
‘So, it’s working,’ Etta said. ‘I want people to dismiss me.’
‘What about you?’ I asked John Horse. ‘What about your costume?’
He smiled. ‘Like you,’ he told me, ‘I wear clothes that address a cliché.’
‘You dress up like an old Seminole man.’ I nodded.
‘Or,’ he said, ‘I dress this way because these are the only clothes I have. Most of what I wear has been given to me by someone else.’
‘Why are we talking about this?’ Etta interrupted.
‘You started it,’ I said.
‘He wants you to change into something else,’ John Horse told her.
She sat back and thought about it for a minute. ‘We need to make a certain impression on Elvin,’ she said. ‘Or the people in his office. Also, to the people at the prison, I can’t look like an urchin.’
I nodded.
‘But I don’t have anything else. My bag is still at the Seminole camp.’
I stood and finished my first cup of coffee. ‘I keep a stash for just such an emergency. Every so often I’ll have to get a kid out of a house, like, really fast. So, I got some clothes in my bottom drawer. From the Goodwill, just in case.’
