His own junker, a 2001 gray Chevy Impala, freshly purchased, sat parked around the block.
He’d have to park the Jag on the other side of the building, on the street. It was expendable. He locked it after pulling to the curb behind the Impala, and slipped the second set of keys out of his pants pocket, his hands shaking with excitement.
He realized Temple had mentioned seeing this guy around when she was out, scraggly looks and loping gait. Woody knew about and had clearly threatened Temple during his call-in to WCOO. Since then Matt had steered clear of the supposedly “retired” cop, who either wanted to discourage or goad him into some action. Over eighty or not, Wetherly was involved in current criminal schemes. Evil and greed had no expiration date.
Now, Matt needed to follow this unappetizing lurker and figure out what he was up to. Or choke it out of him. That was why his hands were shaking. Not fear, fury. The man was several years older than he. Closer to forty than to thirty. Prematurely stooped and lazy-looking, but that kind could be wire-strong.
And he had that frequent offender look. Beat-up billed cap, stingy soul-patch under his lower lip, straggly ponytail disappearing into the collar his lightweight Eisenhower jacket.
Matt struggled into a worn jean jacket while getting behind the Impala’s wheel, picked up the greasy billed cap from a used clothing store from the passenger seat, mussed his choir-boy blond hair and donned it at a laid-back angle. He lowered the driver’s window all the way, the air-conditioning off as if broken, and rested his crooked left arm on the window opening.
A lit cigarette in his fingers would be a crowning touch, but smoking was too foreign to mess with. He started the car and drove around the block as fast as he dared, then slowed to make the right turn onto the street where the jackhammer-toter had parked.
The car was gone.
8
Ring Around the Ritz
I stand with Midnight Louise watching Mr. Matt drive off in his “new” old car, leaving us ride-less in mid-tail.
“I told you,” Miss Midnight Louise says, “we should have slipped into the Impala on the other side of the block while Mr. Matt was occupied into downsizing his look.”
“You mean while he was changing into scruffy, probably stinky clothes to match the driver of the junker car he found so fascinating. What a loser that guy is, ponytail and soul patch.”
“Whatever…”
For the moment, Louise sounds like little Miss Mariah in a teenage snit. “At least, Pops, the clothes would have made it easier to follow him if he left the Impala, which we cannot do now.”
“If you would have listened to me,” I tell her, “we would have slipped into the Jaguar right off, and not have had to race back and forth from that very unsatisfying breakfast rendezvous at the Magic Muffin.”
I am huffing quite a bit from proving to Miss Midnight Louise I can still keep up with a car for a four-block round trip.
She shakes her head. “Only you would stop for a Dumpster inspection on a tailing assignment.”
“There might have been evidence.”
“The only evidence you found on this expedition is the bacon crumbs on your whiskers.”
“It is of interest that Miss Electra has a popular breakfast joint near the Circle Ritz. Good for business.”
“Her business, not ours. What has been the point of this runaround while Mr. Matt changes looks and cars? We have lost him.”
“But we have gained information?”
“What?”
“Night before last, in the aftermath of Miss Electra’s penthouse invasion, Ma Barker told me that tall, dark-coated men from here—men, plural—and one yellow-haired one, were showing up recently on the bad side of town. I have seen Mr. Matt’s breakfast partner before.”
“You have me there, Popster. I have not. And what is Ma Barker doing visiting you at the Circle Ritz when you could bop over to her headquarters at the police substation?”
“Family business, Louise,” I say loftily. “Mother and son bonding. You would not know about that, since you are fixed.”
“Hmmph. So who is this tall, dark-haired man who is so busy he has to run off with the extra breakfast muffin in his pocket?”
“They are super-large. I wonder if there is a dumpling-shrimp version.”
“Daddy Greedy-gut!”
I choose not to take offense. “He is not a frequent player on the scene, but has been assigned back to Las Vegas only recently. Interesting. Mr. Frank Bucek, Mr. Matt’s mentor from years ago in the seminary and now an FBI agent. And Mr. Frank did not seem to share much information with Mr. Matt, or have time to waste.”
“Neither do we,” she says as I wander over to sniff where the junker car of interest to Mr. Matt had been parked.
Hmm. Traces of leaking motor oil with an attar of crushed cactus flowers. The car had been in the desert, but where was it going now?
Only Mr. Matt would know for sure, and he was not talking.
“What will we do next?” Miss Midnight Louie inquires in an exasperated tone.
“At my favorite listening post two nights ago—”
“Under the bed like a chamber pot, no doubt!” she spits. “That is low, Daddy-o. Also an invasion of privacy, so there were two home invasions at the Circle Ritz that night.”
I am not concerned about privacy when so many secrets are circulating among my nearest and dearest.
“I heard a familiar location discussed. That is what I will investigate next.”
I look at the ugly oil spot the junker has left on the asphalt, like a very big bug died under its wheel.
“I think Ma is right. A sinister conspiracy is spreading into our territory.”
“If it turns out as well as our tailing operation this morning, Pops, you had better pack a lunch!”
9
Serpentine Schemes
Matt cruised the Circle Ritz neighborhood almost blindly, his mind churning, trapped behind the wrong vehicles, looking ahead through their windshields for a glimpse of that bare-metal green paint finish version of psoriasis. Madly impatient to wait in line for a red light to turn.
Then, looming in Matt’s rearview mirror, fast and furious, like a squad car that had burped its siren and pulled him over, only there had been no sound, was the driver of the junker glaring at him.
Matt had three vehicles ahead of him, including an SUV that blocked the sight of anyone crossing the intersection. The light was changing and the guy behind Matt laid on his horn as if he had died on it.
Matt looked left, right, ahead. Undecided. Traffic was moving. The car behind jerked ahead enough to tap his bumper. That was a common tactic of someone wanting to claim an accident and then bully a driver into paying him off to go away, or, worse, assaulting and robbing the poor soul.
The gap ahead of the old Impala was growing.
Matt wrenched the wheel, screeching, hard right into the side parking lot of a closed-down dry cleaning store, and put the car in Park.