“I resemble that remark.”
He winked. “Should have been at the auditions. Ooh la-la.”
“Knowing Arnie Junior, I’m figuring he auditioned them himself in person.”
Del laughed, leaned closer to me, exhaled smoke. “Funny part is somebody dimed him to his wife. From then on she sat in on every single shoot. Never let Arnie out of her sight.” He took another swig of beer, taking the mug below halfway. “But I shouldn’t be talking about it.”
“And he wants to be called Ted, not Arnie.”
“Right, right.”
I took a pull at my beer, at my cigar, and at my beer again. The lounge was dark and less than half full. No other patron was within twenty feet of us. I figured that Del, squishy to begin with, was sufficiently softened up. “You guys have a case — big Tier 1 outfit, Stone Automotive? Wrongful death deal, one of their workers.”
Del kind of leaned back, sad-puppy eyes on me. “Maybe, maybe not. You know I can’t—”
“Del! Please!” I tapped ash in the ashtray. “Who just bought you a beer, huh? And who’s about to— Watch this.” I raised a hand toward the bar, gave the high sign. The server nodded. “There. Refill on the way. I buy you beer, you help me out. Fair deal?”
He looked pained. “Just so you keep it quiet.”
“Of course.”
He leaned closer again. “Yeah, their dumb-ass maintenance guy got mangled in a machine. His widow’s suing.”
“Monrho, J. J.? Wife’s name Faith?”
“Yeah, that’s right, Monrho, funny spelling.” The beers arrived. I put a twenty on the table. Del wasn’t quite as much in the bag as I had hoped. He’d built up more resistance in the intervening years. And maybe some spine? Could I be that unlucky? “What’s your interest, Ben?”
“Oh, just some chats that got had. Lawyer pal was telling me about ‘consortium,’ and this Monrho case came up.”
“Consorsh...” Del tried.
I waved a hand. “I don’t understand it myself. But supposedly, the widow, when her husband died she lost consortium? So she’s suing for that?”
Del waved both big hands. “That’s way above my pay grade.”
“Mine too. But the interesting part is this victim, the maintenance guy — what I’m hearing is, he had a girlfriend on the side. Which means his wife had no consortium to lose.”
Del stubbed out his cigarette and fetched a fresh one. I lighted it for him. He nodded thanks, inhaling, then said, “Happens a lot.”
“So did he? For real?”
“I don’t know.”
“Del! Please! This is me!”
“I can’t say nothin’.”
“Come on. It’s just between us girls.”
“Ted would strangle me.”
“That cream puff? You could take him easy.”
He drew up. “You betcha. But it’s not about taking him. It’s about keeping my frickin’ job.”
“No one’s losing any job.”
“I’m not like you, Ben. I’ve got a bad past to live down.”
“Bad past? Hell, man. I used to throw guys down stairs for a living.”
“But see, that was union, that was okay. My stuff was... well... these days I gotta maintain absolute top eth — ethli — ethical standards.”
“All the same, you and me, Del, what we are, is like... brothers. Guys like us help each other out.”
He was shaking his head. “No way, man. Sorry.”
I sighed and eyed him. He avoided my look, fiddling with his cigarette, pulling at his beer. Finally, he looked me dead-on and said, “What?”
“I hate to bring up—”
“What?”
“About who hooked you up with the Coyne Cose gig in the first place.”
“I said I was grateful,” he said sourly.
“I’m sure not feeling the love now.”
“We got rules, Ben.”
“And I’d hate to bring up that old Willow Run business.”
“Oh! This again!”
“About whose fat got pulled out of the fire in just the nick of frickin’ time.”
“I wasn’t fat back then.”
“I took a chair to the head while you skedaddled for the—”
“You had to bring this up! You just had to!”
“Del. Please. You’re the one forcing my hand.”
With short savage strokes he jammed his cigarette out in the loaded ashtray. “This was such a good day,” he moaned, “till you had to go and show up.”
I slid a little closer and lowered my voice. “You got my word,” I said, making the sign of the cross in front of my lips, “this goes absolutely nowhere further. The chick the late Mr. J. J. Monrho was dallying with? Just give me her name.”
Joy Monrho’s address, obtained for me off the Internet by Shyla Ryan, turned out to be in Lincoln Park, an older, tucked-away suburb just southwest of Detroit. Her imposing brick colonial was in a surprisingly attractive subdivision of similar houses that squatted large on their smallish treed lots. It was five thirty by the time I parked my ’71 Mustang half a block up. To sit, and watch, and think.
Because I had no business being here. None.
My sole assignment, after all, was to get the name of the woman with whom J. J. Monrho, deceased husband of Micki’s client, was allegedly having an affair. So all I had to do now was get Micki on the horn, give her my report, and go about my business. And I would have, except for what Del Laing had said to me after coughing up the name.
“Watch out, Ben. This broad is bad, bad, bad news.”
“What do you mean, Del?”
“She’s just plain evil.”
“Hey,” I said, rising from the booth, “you keep talking her up like this, I might propose to her.”
“This ain’t funny. Take it from me. And what makes her so scary is how good she is at hiding her true self. People who know her, they think she’s this sweet, quiet, proper, respectable, solid-citizen-type woman.”
“How do you know she isn’t?”
He put a big paw on his heart and looked at me with his droopy sad-puppy eyes. “I know the signs. I can smell ’em a mile away. I was married to one just like her.”
“Thanks anyhow, Del.”
“You’ll see,” he called as I headed for the lounge exit. “I learned the hard way over ninety-one hundred eighty-five days. You’ll see!”
A fairly new silver Impala sat in the driveway. Some lights shone inside. I was getting hungry. This was not, after all, a paying case. I needed to pick Rachel up from day care soon. Fortunately, that was in Plymouth, over a piece and yonder a way. I had a few minutes, and I was here.
And I just had to check this out for myself. J. J. Monrho had been having an affair with — of all the women in all the gin joints in metro Detroit — his ex?
Who does that?
The big door with its half-moon window pulled open seconds after I rang. The woman was of average height and build with short, wavy, chocolate hair and middle-aged plain Jane looks except for her eyes, which were large and a startling shade of green. She wore dressy jeans and a blue chambray shirt with Smarr & Daft embroidered in red over the pocket. Her posture was guarded, but not overly so. She was comfortable in her home and in her skin. “Yes?”
“Hi. Joy Monrho?” She nodded. “I’m Harv O’Gannon, from Coyne Cose?”
She blinked and made an embarrassed half-smile. “Yes?”
After a moment, I chuckled. “You weren’t expecting me, were you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
I glanced down at the small pad in my hand and shook my head. “Our office girl, she’s kind of new,” I said, doing my best aw-shucks. “I had a sneaking suspicion maybe she didn’t confirm with you. One of those annoying logistical foul-ups.”
“What’s this about?”
“Well, I have the report from Del Laing, and we need to lock down all the details.”
“Oh,” she said, honestly puzzled. “I thought... Mr. Bumpps said he was through with me till the deposition.”