“You reading the paper?”
Clement didn’t even look up. Now he was scratching the bright new blue and red tattoo of a gravestone on his right forearm that said In Memory of Mother.
“Hey!”
Hell with him. Sandy went into the bedroom and changed from her silk shirt and slacks to green satin jogging shorts and a T-shirt that said, Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio. She looked about seventeen, a freckled, reddish-blond 95-pounder with perky little breasts. Sort of a girl version of Clement, though a lot better looking. Not the type, at first glance, some management consultant would keep in his stylish apartment. But look again and see the fun in her eyes. It gave a man the feeling that if he turned her little motor on she’d whirl him back to his youth and take him places he’d never been.
Back in the living room she tried again. “You still reading the paper?”
You bet he was, every word for the second time, wondering how in the world he hadn’t recognized the judge last night-the face with the little tango-dancer mustache staring up at him from the front page. He had shot and killed Judge Alvin Guy and didn’t have a thing to show for it. Not even peace of mind now. If there wasn’t a reward for shooting the little dinge he ought to get a medal, something.
Sandy Stanton said, “Well, I saw the secret room and I saw this little safe he’s so proud of. I think me and you could pick it up without any fear of getting a hernia. But it was weird. I mean the room, with all these cots folded up and a fridge, one tiny room like full of canned goods… Hey, you listening or what?”
Clement sat back on the couch, exposing the pair of bluebirds tattooed above his pure-white breasts. When they had first met three and a half years ago at a disco, Clement had said, “You want to see my birds?” and opened his shirt to show her. Then he’d said, “You want to see my chicken?” When Sandy said yes he pulled his shirt out of his pants and showed her his navel in the center of his hard belly. Sandy said, “I don’t see any chicken.” And Clement said, “It’s faded out; all that’s left is its asshole.”
He nodded toward the picture in the paper. “You know who that is?”
“I saw it,” Sandy said. She looked from the bold headline, JUDGE GUY MURDERED, and the grinning photograph to Clement’s solemn face. Her mind said, Uh-oh, what does he care? And edged toward the answer, saying, “He couldn’ta been a friend of yours. Why you taking it so hard?”
Silence.
Uh-oh.
Sandy said, “Hey, quit biting your nails. You want to tell me something or’s it better I don’t know?”
Clement said, “Wouldn’t you think they’d be a bounty on the little fucker? A reward you could claim?”
“Who could claim?” Sandy waited while Clement bit on the cuticle of his middle finger, left hand, like a little boy watching his dad read his report card.
“You know how many people,” Clement said, “would pay money-I mean real money-to have this done? Jesus.”
“Maybe somebody did pay.”
“Nuh-uh, it was done free of charge. God damn it.”
“Oh, shit,” Sandy said, with a sigh of weariness. “Don’t tell me no more, okay?”
She was in the kitchen, Clement was still scratching, biting his nails, staring at the grinning ex-judge, when the security man in the lobby called. He was an older colored man that Sandy liked to kid with, calling him Carlton the doorman. They didn’t kid around today, though. Sandy came out to the living room.
“Maybe they come to give you the medal.”
Clement hadn’t even heard the buzzer. He looked up now. “Who’s that?”
“The police,” Sandy said.
RAYMOND SAID TO WENDELL ROBINSON, “You want to be the good guy?”
“No, you be the good guy,” Wendell said. “I’m tired and grouchy enough to be a natural heavy, we need to get into that shit.”
Raymond said, “What’re you tired from?” But didn’t get an answer. The door opened and a girl in a Cedar Point T-shirt and satin shorts was looking at them with innocent eyes. Raymond held up his I.D.
“How you doing? I’m Lieutenant Raymond Cruz, Detroit Police. This is Sergeant Robinson. We understand-the man downstairs says your name’s Sandy Stanton?” Very friendly, almost smiling.
The girl gave them a nod, guarded.
“He said Mr. Weems is out of town.” Raymond watched the girl’s wide-eyed expression come to life.
“Oh, you’re looking for Del.”
Raymond said, “Is that right, Sandy, he’s out of town?”
“Yeah, on business. I think he went out to California or someplace.”
“You mind if we come inside?”
“I know it sounds corny,” Sandy said, as though she hated to have to bring it up, “but have you got a warrant?”
Raymond said, “A warrant-for what? We’re not looking for anything. We just want to ask you about Mr. Weems.”
Sandy sighed, stepping out of the way. She watched the two cops, the white one in the dark suit and the black one in the light-gray suit, glance down the short hallway at the closed doors as they went into the living room: the white cop looking around, the black cop going straight to the windows-which is what almost everyone did-to look out at the river and the city. The view was sharply defined this afternoon, the sun backlighting the Renaissance Center, giving the glass towers the look of black marble.
Raymond didn’t care too much for the colors in the room: green, gray and black with a lot of chrome. It reminded him of a lawyer’s office. He said, “I understand you drove Mr. Weems to the airport.”
“The day before yesterday,” Sandy said. “What is it you want him for?”
“You drive him out in his car?”
“Yeah… why?”
“Buick Riviera, license PYX-546?”
“I don’t know the license number.”
“What do you do for a living, Sandy?”
“You mean when I work? I tend bar, wait tables if I have to.”
“You use the car last night?”
“What car?”
“The Buick.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t,” Sandy said. “I went to the race track with somebody.”
“What one, over in Windsor?”
“No, out to Hazel Park.”
She saw the black cop turn from the window. He looked like a suit salesman or a professional athlete. A colored guy who spent money on clothes.
The other one was smiling somewhat. “You win?”
Sandy gave him a bored look. “You kidding?”
“I know what you mean,” Raymond said. “Who’d you go with?”
“Fella I know. Skender Lulgjaraj.”
Amazing. The white cop didn’t blink or make a face or say, Lul-what?
“What time’d you get home?”
“It was pretty late.”
“Skender drive?”
There, again, like he was familiar with the name. “Yeah, he picked me up.”
Raymond frowned, like he was a little confused. “Then who used Mr. Weems’ car last night?”
He had a little-boy look about him, even with the droopy mustache. The dark hair down on his forehead…
“Nobody did,” Sandy said.
She watched them give her the old silent treatment, waiting for her to say too much if she tried to fake it or tried to act innocent or amazed-when all she had to do was hang tough and not act at all. It was hard, though; too hard and finally she said, “What’s wrong?”
Raymond said, “Did you loan the car to somebody?”
“Uh-unh.”
“Did Mr. Weems, before he left?”
“Not that I know of. Hey, maybe it was stolen.”
“It’s downstairs,” Raymond said. “You have the keys, don’t you?”
“Yeah, someplace.”
“Why don’t you check, just to make sure.”
Oh shit, Sandy thought, feeling exposed now in her shorts and T-shirt and barefeet, wanting to walk over to the desk and pick up the keys, but having no idea in the world what Clement did with them-trying to picture him coming in then. No, she had come in and he was sitting on the couch reading the paper-the paper still lying there pulled apart. She said, “Gee, I never know what I do with keys,” and got away from them, starting to move about the room.